Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:Kidinnu

2008-07-01T17:14:26Z

Kidinnu: Recording my generic starting build.

=Scouting reports:=

In brief:

* Slozgo Udo (1066): 285 rejects! Southern hemisphere, seas peripheral, deserts mostly good.
* Thadar Kajeth (20130): Southern hemisphere, mid-sized seas central and south/east.
* Mon Ebno (50105): Northern hemisphere, dominated by an evil desert in the east, small seas in the west.

=Active Fortresses=

Using version 27.176.38c.

Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
Kidinnu is bored; stops working to play Dwarf Fortress.
Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
...

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
|- valign="top"
| w3
| Mon Ebno (50105)
| Koladiger (Ghoulriver); 7x5
| 256, 108: Near the northmost point of the Crest of Sadness (haunted warm mountain; shale/quartzite/gabbro), where it ends in the Dune of Mesh (warm sand desert wilderness; yellow sand aquifer/...). Just within the malign influence of Amxueb.
| Autumn 1052
| 21 May 2008
| Storytelling: desert dwarves digging in to find long underground river, clear it out, & establish large farms off of it
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 56 dwarves, thriving w. uppermost (longest) segment of river clear; there's a Giant cave on site, and one of the Trolls just wandered out to chase my haulers. Next digging task: canal south of upper river, with closeable drain to lower river, and treefarm chambers off of it. Bethabara is well-established, but main fortress is really completely unplanned.
|- valign="top"
| w4
| Thadar Kajeth (20130)
| Zikeldolek (Fiercecomet); 6x4
| 80, 40: Along the Guardedstruck in the Mire of Sun (warm/hot temperate freswater swamp; silty clay loam/basalt/marble/gabbro, clay loam/chalk/phyllite/gabbro) at the base of the Fingers of Clasping (rhyolite/gneiss/granite). Signs of lava nearby.
| Summer 1053
| 22 May 2008
| Educational: get steel industry going, learn to exploit magma
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 76 dwarves, my first Dungeon Master. Core industry - food, metal - is thriving, but need to get secondaries (clothing) going. Cleared imps out of the magma pool, once apprentice miners finish digging upper bedrooms should be cutting channels to place magma smelters & forges on. Immigrant armorer stepped on the map, immediately had successful mood, so high-quality steel chainmail is easy to get. Fort was built into mountains, while all the iron & flux are across the river under the hills, so mining has come relatively late to my fortress.
|- valign="top"
| w7
| Slozgo Slospu (The Universe of Omen: 1667825290)
| Tobulrithzam (Canyonbulwark); 6x7. An outpost of Nadakzulban (the Defended Banners), founded by Gusilrigoth (the Copper Craft).
| 154, 103: Where Leafhushed the Lazy League comes down out of the Allied Towers (warm untamed mountain; dolomite/granite/gabbro, claystone/schist/granite) into the Hills of Evil (terrifying warm savanna; red sand/claystone/schist/granite). Leafhushed leads most of the way through the range towards Keskalmomuz, and needs to be interdicted.
| Winter 1054
| 25 June 2008
|
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 65 dwarves and ready to grow. Excellent industry, too much food, 8 champion marksdwarves busy wrestling to pass the time. Have just started receiving goblin ambushes, sometimes several times per month, but most of map is inside defenses and accesses are guarded by dogs, so at worst we lose a hauler. Design successful, if a bit overly-orderly. Quite a lot of fun, but frame rate crashed to 30; turning off weather & temperature got it back up to 50, but it intermittently drops back down. What's left to do? Improve defenses, penetrate the pit in the SW & start harvesting cave spider silk, prepare for more noble arrivals and eventual sieges, ...? Managed without a Bethabara.
|}

=Fortress Ideas and Philosophy=

I wrote the first versions of [[Challenge_Builds#Hunting_Party]] and [[Challenge_Builds#Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement]], and still find myself drawn to variants on those for my roleplay attempts (i.e. just about all my forts).

I've historically taken a "Bethabara" (18th century Moravian German term for "House of Passage" - they literally built a small village where they lived comunally in order to have a place to live while they were building a well-organized city) approach since DF moved to 3d: build a tiny fort of 6-8 6x6 rooms, get food, masonry, carpentry, and crafting going there, and then dig the "main fort". However, I tend to find that (1) I end up with main fort layouts that I don't like or that have something ill-considered/rushed about them, and (2) moving from the Bethabara to the main fort is often awkward.

I avoid traps, and rely on marksdwarves behind fortifications. I start slow. I get frustrated by the (high) rate of immigration. I take extensive notes as I play, but haven't yet written them up in story form.

==Starting Builds==

My generic starting build is:

* Proficient Miner / Proficient Weaponsmith
* Proficient Miner / Proficient Armorsmith
* Proficient Carpenter / Proficient tradeskill (woodcrafter or stonecrafter)
* Skilled Woodcutter / Novice Persuader / N Negotiator / N Judge of Intent / N Appraiser / N Consoler / N Pacifier
* Proficient Mason / Competent Building Designer / Mechanic
* Proficient Brewer / Proficient Cook
* Proficient Grower / Proficient tradeskill (metalcrafter)

I don't like pairing woodcutter with most other starting skills because I tend to clear-cut. I used to use Herbalism heavily, but have move away from it in the current version. I don't understand builds like [Starting_builds#Rapid_expansion], since one skilled grower is so much more efficient than several unskilled growers (the broad-sets-of-skills in that build don't make sense to me either).

==To try more of==

* Underwater river/chasm-centric construction. Dwarven Venice? Seems tougher in 3D, where both terrains are infested with creatures.

=Previous Versions=

[[User:Kidinnu/old]]

User:Kidinnu

2008-06-25T19:39:31Z

Kidinnu: Removed an out-of-play fort, updated with current (soon to be idled) fort.

=Scouting reports:=

In brief:

* Slozgo Udo (1066): 285 rejects! Southern hemisphere, seas peripheral, deserts mostly good.
* Thadar Kajeth (20130): Southern hemisphere, mid-sized seas central and south/east.
* Mon Ebno (50105): Northern hemisphere, dominated by an evil desert in the east, small seas in the west.

=Active Fortresses=

Using version 27.176.38c.

Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
Kidinnu is bored; stops working to play Dwarf Fortress.
Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
...

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
|- valign="top"
| w3
| Mon Ebno (50105)
| Koladiger (Ghoulriver); 7x5
| 256, 108: Near the northmost point of the Crest of Sadness (haunted warm mountain; shale/quartzite/gabbro), where it ends in the Dune of Mesh (warm sand desert wilderness; yellow sand aquifer/...). Just within the malign influence of Amxueb.
| Autumn 1052
| 21 May 2008
| Storytelling: desert dwarves digging in to find long underground river, clear it out, & establish large farms off of it
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 56 dwarves, thriving w. uppermost (longest) segment of river clear; there's a Giant cave on site, and one of the Trolls just wandered out to chase my haulers. Next digging task: canal south of upper river, with closeable drain to lower river, and treefarm chambers off of it. Bethabara is well-established, but main fortress is really completely unplanned.
|- valign="top"
| w4
| Thadar Kajeth (20130)
| Zikeldolek (Fiercecomet); 6x4
| 80, 40: Along the Guardedstruck in the Mire of Sun (warm/hot temperate freswater swamp; silty clay loam/basalt/marble/gabbro, clay loam/chalk/phyllite/gabbro) at the base of the Fingers of Clasping (rhyolite/gneiss/granite). Signs of lava nearby.
| Summer 1053
| 22 May 2008
| Educational: get steel industry going, learn to exploit magma
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 76 dwarves, my first Dungeon Master. Core industry - food, metal - is thriving, but need to get secondaries (clothing) going. Cleared imps out of the magma pool, once apprentice miners finish digging upper bedrooms should be cutting channels to place magma smelters & forges on. Immigrant armorer stepped on the map, immediately had successful mood, so high-quality steel chainmail is easy to get. Fort was built into mountains, while all the iron & flux are across the river under the hills, so mining has come relatively late to my fortress.
|- valign="top"
| w7
| Slozgo Slospu (The Universe of Omen: 1667825290)
| Tobulrithzam (Canyonbulwark); 6x7. An outpost of Nadakzulban (the Defended Banners), founded by Gusilrigoth (the Copper Craft).
| 154, 103: Where Leafhushed the Lazy League comes down out of the Allied Towers (warm untamed mountain; dolomite/granite/gabbro, claystone/schist/granite) into the Hills of Evil (terrifying warm savanna; red sand/claystone/schist/granite). Leafhushed leads most of the way through the range towards Keskalmomuz, and needs to be interdicted.
| Winter 1054
| 25 June 2008
|
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 65 dwarves and ready to grow. Excellent industry, too much food, 8 champion marksdwarves busy wrestling to pass the time. Have just started receiving goblin ambushes, sometimes several times per month, but most of map is inside defenses and accesses are guarded by dogs, so at worst we lose a hauler. Design successful, if a bit overly-orderly. Quite a lot of fun, but frame rate crashed to 30; turning off weather & temperature got it back up to 50, but it intermittently drops back down. What's left to do? Improve defenses, penetrate the pit in the SW & start harvesting cave spider silk, prepare for more noble arrivals and eventual sieges, ...? Managed without a Bethabara.
|}

=Fortress Ideas and Philosophy=

I wrote the first versions of [[Challenge_Builds#Hunting_Party]] and [[Challenge_Builds#Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement]], and still find myself drawn to variants on those for my roleplay attempts (i.e. just about all my forts).

I've historically taken a "Bethabara" (18th century Moravian German term for "House of Passage" - they literally built a small village where they lived comunally in order to have a place to live while they were building a well-organized city) approach since DF moved to 3d: build a tiny fort of 6-8 6x6 rooms, get food, masonry, carpentry, and crafting going there, and then dig the "main fort". However, I tend to find that (1) I end up with main fort layouts that I don't like or that have something ill-considered/rushed about them, and (2) moving from the Bethabara to the main fort is often awkward.

I avoid traps, and rely on marksdwarves behind fortifications. I start slow. I get frustrated by the (high) rate of immigration. I take extensive notes as I play, but haven't yet written them up in story form.

==To try more of==

* Underwater river/chasm-centric construction. Dwarven Venice? Seems tougher in 3D, where both terrains are infested with creatures.

=Previous Versions=

[[User:Kidinnu/old]]

User:Kidinnu

2008-05-30T12:20:30Z

Kidinnu: Updating with another fortress I'm toying with.

=Scouting reports:=

In brief:

* Slozgo Udo (1066): 285 rejects! Southern hemisphere, seas peripheral, deserts mostly good.
* Thadar Kajeth (20130): Southern hemisphere, mid-sized seas central and south/east.
* Mon Ebno (50105): Northern hemisphere, dominated by an evil desert in the east, small seas in the west.

=Active Fortresses=

Using version 27.176.38c.

Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
Kidinnu is bored; stops working to play Dwarf Fortress.
Kidinnu stops playing Dwarf Fortress; interrupted by work.
...

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
|- valign="top"
| w3
| Mon Ebno (50105)
| Koladiger (Ghoulriver); 7x5
| 256, 108: Near the northmost point of the Crest of Sadness (haunted warm mountain; shale/quartzite/gabbro), where it ends in the Dune of Mesh (warm sand desert wilderness; yellow sand aquifer/...). Just within the malign influence of Amxueb.
| Autumn 1052
| 21 May 2008
| Storytelling: desert dwarves digging in to find long underground river, clear it out, & establish large farms off of it
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 56 dwarves, thriving w. uppermost (longest) segment of river clear; there's a Giant cave on site, and one of the Trolls just wandered out to chase my haulers. Next digging task: canal south of upper river, with closeable drain to lower river, and treefarm chambers off of it. Bethabara is well-established, but main fortress is really completely unplanned.
|- valign="top"
| w4
| Thadar Kajeth (20130)
| Zikeldolek (Fiercecomet); 6x4
| 80, 40: Along the Guardedstruck in the Mire of Sun (warm/hot temperate freswater swamp; silty clay loam/basalt/marble/gabbro, clay loam/chalk/phyllite/gabbro) at the base of the Fingers of Clasping (rhyolite/gneiss/granite). Signs of lava nearby.
| Summer 1053
| 22 May 2008
| Educational: get steel industry going, learn to exploit magma
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 76 dwarves, my first Dungeon Master. Core industry - food, metal - is thriving, but need to get secondaries (clothing) going. Cleared imps out of the magma pool, once apprentice miners finish digging upper bedrooms should be cutting channels to place magma smelters & forges on. Immigrant armorer stepped on the map, immediately had successful mood, so high-quality steel chainmail is easy to get. Fort was built into mountains, while all the iron & flux are across the river under the hills, so mining has come relatively late to my fortress.
|- valign="top"
| w5
| (1066)
| Tobullilar (Canyonpattern); 7x8. An outpost of Goden Bokbon (the Ropes of Heather), monitoring and containing the Blind Hills; founded by Ritholonshen (the Noble Chant).
| 236, 71: Where Dikechirped the Wretch of Corruption spills out of the Common Fingers (warm-hot untamed mountain; limestone/schist/granite) into the Blind Hills (terrifying tropical shrubland; sandy clay/limestone/schist/granite).
| Spring 1054
| 29 May 2008
|
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 44 dwarves (after heavy immigration control). Food, metal, cloth are thriving, despite loss of our legendary grower to a goblin ambush, and bedrooms are adequately established. Continuous slow drain of troops injured or killed either by zombie elephants or goblin ambushes. Defenses are coming together, limiting access to the fort, but there's too much uncontrolled space on the eastern plateau where we've lumbered and keep sending haulers to get the wood. Legendaries: 3 miners, 1 engraver, 1 woodcutter/record keeper, 1 stonecarver, 2 bonecarvers. Tried for a vertical design, with bedrooms at + elevations (in limestone), storerooms at -2/-3, and workshops at -4, but then started building fort in too tight a peninsula of land, so bedrooms are still significantly offset horizontally from the rest of the infrastructure.
|}

=Fortress Ideas and Philosophy=

I wrote the first versions of [[Challenge_Builds#Hunting_Party]] and [[Challenge_Builds#Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement]], and still find myself drawn to variants on those for my roleplay attempts (i.e. just about all my forts).

I've historically taken a "Bethabara" (18th century Moravian German term for "House of Passage" - they literally built a small village where they lived comunally in order to have a place to live while they were building a well-organized city) approach since DF moved to 3d: build a tiny fort of 6-8 6x6 rooms, get food, masonry, carpentry, and crafting going there, and then dig the "main fort". However, I tend to find that (1) I end up with main fort layouts that I don't like or that have something ill-considered/rushed about them, and (2) moving from the Bethabara to the main fort is often awkward.

I avoid traps, and rely on marksdwarves behind fortifications. I start slow. I get frustrated by the (high) rate of immigration. I take extensive notes as I play, but haven't yet written them up in story form.

==To try more of==

* Underwater river/chasm-centric construction. Dwarven Venice? Seems tougher in 3D, where both terrains are infested with creatures.

=Previous Versions=

[[User:Kidinnu/old]]

User:Kidinnu

2008-05-23T22:16:28Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2008-05-23T21:29:29Z

Kidinnu: Adding notes about my current construction philosophy & designs I want to try more of.

=Scouting reports:=

To come later.

=Active Fortresses=

Using version 27.176.38c.
These are all parked as of 23 May 2008 because they were eating into work time way too much.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
|- valign="top"
| w3
| Mon Ebno (50105)
| Koladiger (Ghoulriver); 7x5
| 256, 108: Near the northmost point of the Crest of Sadness (haunted warm mountain; shale/quartzite/gabbro), where it ends in the Dune of Mesh (warm sand desert wilderness; yellow sand aquifer/...). Just within the malign influence of Amxueb.
| Autumn 1052
| 21 May 2008
| Storytelling: desert dwarves digging in to find long underground river, clear it out, & establish large farms off of it
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 56 dwarves, thriving w. uppermost (longest) segment of river clear; there's a Giant cave on site, and one of the Trolls just wandered out to chase my haulers. Next digging task: canal south of upper river, with closeable drain to lower river, and treefarm chambers off of it. Bethabara is well-established, but main fortress is really completely unplanned.
|- valign="top"
| w4
| Thadar Kajeth (20130)
| Zikeldolek (Fiercecomet); 6x4
| 80, 40: Along the Guardedstruck in the Mire of Sun (warm/hot temperate freswater swamp; silty clay loam/basalt/marble/gabbro, clay loam/chalk/phyllite/gabbro) at the base of the Fingers of Clasping (rhyolite/gneiss/granite). Signs of lava nearby.
| Summer 1053
| 22 May 2008
| Educational: get steel industry going, learn to exploit magma
|-
|
| colspan="6" | '''Current State''': 76 dwarves, my first Dungeon Master. Core industry - food, metal - is thriving, but need to get secondaries (clothing) going. Cleared imps out of the magma pool, once apprentice miners finish digging upper bedrooms should be cutting channels to place magma smelters & forges on. Immigrant armorer stepped on the map, immediately had successful mood, so high-quality steel chainmail is easy to get. Fort was built into mountains, while all the iron & flux are across the river under the hills, so mining has come relatively late to my fortress.
|}

=Fortress Ideas and Philosophy=

I wrote the first versions of [[Challenge_Builds#Hunting_Party]] and [[Challenge_Builds#Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement]], and still find myself drawn to variants on those for my roleplay attempts (i.e. just about all my forts).

I've historically taken a "Bethabara" (18th century Moravian German term for "House of Passage" - they literally built a small village where they lived comunally in order to have a place to live while they were building a well-organized city) approach since DF moved to 3d: build a tiny fort of 6-8 6x6 rooms, get food, masonry, carpentry, and crafting going there, and then dig the "main fort". However, I tend to find that (1) I end up with main fort layouts that I don't like or that have something ill-considered/rushed about them, and (2) moving from the Bethabara to the main fort is often awkward.

I avoid traps, and rely on marksdwarves behind fortifications. I start slow. I get frustrated by the (high) rate of immigration.

==To try more of==

* Underwater river/chasm-centric construction. Dwarven Venice? Seems tougher in 3D, where both terrains are infested with creatures.

=Previous Versions=

[[User:Kidinnu/old]]

User:Kidinnu

2008-05-23T21:10:50Z

Kidinnu: Replacing "current" state from last November with this month's play notes.

User:Kidinnu/8998

2008-05-23T20:49:56Z

Kidinnu: User:Kidinnu/8998 moved to User:Kidinnu/old/8998: This is several (?) versions back and no longer an accurate worldgen outcome. Will eliminate this page once I've culled some details I want to keep.

#REDIRECT [[User:Kidinnu/old/8998]]

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2008-05-23T20:49:56Z

== 8998 ==

Ushul Num, The Realms of Wind

There's something wrong here: only two dwarven civilizations, and a huge expanse of haunted mountains stretching from the south pole northwestward, almost to the equator. The equatorial dwarves are hemmed in: to the south is a sea and generally inhospitable habitats; to the east a mountain range densely infested with goblins. The southeastern dwarves have great expansion prospects northwards, however, and the southern end of the next mountain range up has some impressive cliffs and chasms.

Only 5 rejects, all early; < 2 minutes on fast desktop, < 10 minutes on slow laptop.

===Major Volcanoes===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
! Nearby vents and other features
|-
| (0,4)
| calm scorching tropical shrubland; aquifer; 2s from brook
| ne on brook
|-
| (7,1)
| calm scorching tropical savanna; 11s from brook; loamy sand/rhyolite/obsidian/granite
| se next to goblin fortress; s in mountains near sandy savanna, 3s from brook; *w in wild tropical savanna 4s from brook, moderate cliffs, white sand/rhyolite/granite/diorite; nw 3s from brook, nearly flat; 2e 5s from brook; ssw far from brook; wnw far from brook
|-
| (7,1)
| mountains, 11s from brook, 10s from calm scorching tropical grassland
| ne in mountains near sandy wild savanna, 1s from brook, high cliffs; *ese along stream
|-
| (1,2)
| mirthful moist brdlf forest / wilderness savanna; aquifer; 6s to brook
|
|-
| (13,2)
| wild tropical savanna; aquifer; 2s from brook
| sw far from brook; 2sw, double aquifer, 5s from brook; wsw, no brook
|-
| *(0,4)
| warm temperate savanna/sinister mountain; 1s from brook; (silty clay loam)/andesite/gabbro/granite; basalt/phyllite/gabbro; high cliffs
| ne far from brook; likely waterfall ese
|-
|(1,4)
| tropical freshwater marsh/mountain; on brook; felsite/granite/diorite; red sand/gabbro/slate/diorite; medium cliffs (higher further east in conifer forest)
| s2sw on swamp/broadleaf forest boundar, far from brook, flat
|-
| (0,7)
| haunted mountains/rocky wasteland, extreme cliffs, 5s from brook
|
|-
| (3,7)
| inaccessibly remote
|
|-
| (14,8)
| temperate grassland island, aquifer
|
|-
| (14,11)
| untamed temperate shrubland; double aquifer, no brook, flat
| sw, ssw
|-
| (9,12)
| haunted conifer forest; aquifer; 3s from brook
| 3 4s from brook
|}

===Other Known Vents===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,3)
| adjacent to goblin fort at sw corner of mountain range
|-
| (8,4)
| nne of the source of mythdwans; extreme cliffs, vent underground below the level, nice star-shaped chasm - but no trees or shrubs, despite the "Heavily Forested" swamp - must be above the treeline
|-
| (8,9)
| in the bend of the Stump of Drinking (between haunted & mirthful mountains), right next to river mid-temperate wilderness grassland. sand, clay, rhyolite, phyllite, abbro, gneiss, gentle slopes
|}

===Interesting Sites===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,5) where Highamazed enters the Grimgorged
| two streams enter major river over extreme cliffs - river gorge is 13 layers deep. Doesn't have the aquifer problems of the upper Grimgorged (which barring those would have plenty of nice sites, including a vent next to river next to haunted lake). sandboxy site: joyous forest, untamed grasslands (?). named fish everywhere, but they're not supposed to be so nasty after 33b, right? large "sunken garden" open to the air 5 layers down between the two streams, full of magnetite deposits, with a small rock pillar upwards in the middle - lots of fun to carve away the 1-square wide access, put bridges there, and have that be the stairwell for your fortress. 8x8 area is way too slow, though; with a 4x4 can only choose 1 waterfall or the other, or just the sinkhole with no waterfalls. Nice small waterfall 1s ne fits in 4x4, but only 2 high.
|-
| (7,4) where Hollowweasel comes down from the mountains
| cliffs 2 high, but into pool surrounded by cliffs; not in an exposed cliff face. wild densely-shrubbed swamp but trees are really sparse. if there was fuel, there'd be lots of steel potential, but there isn't. leopards & gorillas. further downstream where the river turns south is a nice spot for a 4x5, more trees, but no obvious flux layer. Still further, just before the Hollowweasel spills into the lake (Hollow Blueness of Working), there's a confluence with 8-layer cliffs; magnetite, dense forests; there are supposed to be two layers of aquifer midway up the cliff, but you can cut a ramp down the cliffside without any trouble (except getting scared by carp/hippo if you do it along the riverside). Fortress starts with a fish-on-fish slaughter in the riverbottom...
|-
| (8,15) Jestwine heads into the mountain below its source
| extreme terrifying cliffs around a freezing riverbottom; another possible 3x5ish Night Watch site
|}

User:Kidinnu/old

2008-05-23T20:49:15Z

Kidinnu: New page: =Scouting reports:= * Ushul Num (seed 8998) * Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001) =Active Fortresses= {| class="wikitable" |- ! Region ! Seed ...

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/old/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/old/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Summer 1053
| 20 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 46 dwarves, stable. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - getting bridge set up is a bit annoying, and zombies keep shambling down from a sidecanyon. 13 trained marksdwarves, more than half full-time. Biggest annoyance is cleaning up spam of c. 800 singleton bolts that missed archery targets. Even 5x5 is lagging a bit annoyingly on the laptop. Need intermediate industries. Have glassworker/mechanic slowly going mad for want of unknown raw gem.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

40d:Bowyer

2008-05-22T16:25:56Z

Kidinnu: Fix error: crossbow-making skill is not used to make metal bows.

{{Skill
| color = rgb(255,255,0)
| skill = Bowyer
| speciality = Bowyer
| profession = [[Woodworker]]
| job name = Crossbow Making
| tasks =
* Make [[crossbow]]
* Forge [[crossbow]]
| workshop =
* [[Bowyer's workshop]]
* [[Metalsmith's forge]]
}}
The crossbow-making skill is used to make [[wood]]en and [[bone]] [[crossbows]] at a [[bowyer's workshop]].

This skill is not used to make [[bolt]]s (which requires either [[Wood crafter|wood crafting]], [[bone carving]], or [[Weaponsmith|weaponsmithing]]). It is also *not* used to make [[metal]] bows at a [[metalsmith's forge]], which again requires [[Weaponsmith|weaponsmithing]].

{{Skills}}
[[Category:Skills]]

40d Talk:Crossbow-making

2008-05-22T16:25:02Z

Kidinnu: Agreed with another editor's observation of error on this page

I know that Weaponsmiths will make metal crossbows at a (magma) forge. I haven't seen Bowyers work metal, and I suspect they don't, but I'm not sure. (Ver. 0.27.176.38c) -- [[User:Raumkraut|Raumkraut]] 20:59, 3 April 2008 (EDT)
: I saw the same thing (all that wasted wood trying to skill my bowyer! and now plain steel crossbows from a mediocre weaponsmith); changing the article. --[[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 12:25, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

40d:Starting builds

2008-05-19T12:07:26Z

Kidinnu: /* Free Equipment */ Note that only military skills can be known if you're going to get free equipment

'''Starting builds''' are different strategies that you can choose when starting a new game in [[fortress mode]]. The 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 gives advice on some of the many gameplay elements which influence the flow of your game based on your goals. These include: choosing a ''fortress site'', the ''starting build'' itself - defined by who and what to take with you - as well as ''challenge builds'' aimed at providing new or unusual challenges to advanced players.

* Your First Fortress?
Note: If you are a new player looking for a solid basis to survive the first couple of months or years, check out [[Your_first_fortress|this guide]]. It includes a basic starting build similar to the one discussed below.

== Components of a Starting Build ==

=== Skills ===

Each dwarf can learn any of a large number of [[skills]]. Dwarves with little experience in a skill will work slowly and ineffectively.

* For example inexperienced [[herbalist|herbalists]] will gather stacks of only one or two plants or even nothing, inexperienced [[farming|farmers]] will often plant stacks of only one or two plants. This results in a small overall output which takes many [[container#container|containers]] to store in, less effective food preparation in the kitchen, and more space needed for [[stockpiles]].
* Inexperienced [[Miner|miners]] work very slowly. Mining can be levelled up quite quickly by mining [[soil#soil|soil]], but taking two dwarves with at least some points in mining is recommended in many cases.
* In nearly all [[workshop]]s, inexperienced dwarves who create items will create low quality goods, and take a long time doing so. Skilled dwarves work quickly and produce high-quality items.
** [[Quality]] is a central concept in the game - it affects [[food]], [[alcohol]], and almost anything you will have your dwarves create in the game: [[trading]] goods, [[barrel|barrels]], [[clothing]], [[armor]], [[furniture]], [[weapons]], and so on. Quality also has a large effect on the worth of an item while [[trading]].

Dwarves improve their skills on a learning-by-doing-basis. Dwarves who have specific labors enabled will, after a while, progress to Dabbling users of their skill, and continue to learn from performing that labor. Overall, "levelling up" the dwarves' skills quickly is a good game goal to set. Doing so may result in your dwarves efficiently creating a magnificent fortress filled to the brim with valuable items and furniture. (Or it might [[losing|not]].)

Using and seeing high-quality items gives dwarves happy [[thought]]s. This tends to decrease the incidences of [[tantrum]]s, increasing a fortress's longevity.

=== Which do I need, really? ===

Most builds recommend:

* 2 miners
* mason
* brewer
* cook
* mechanic
* grower
* carpenter
* woodcutter
* herbalist
* some skills (crafter, gem setter, smith..) to create trade goods or build up a dwarven glass or steel industry.

==== Combining Skills ====
Some [[skills]] are highly time-consuming, and working at different jobs levels up specific [[attribute]]s. One could level up a miner until hes becomes mighty and ultra-tough - and then turn him into a soldier. If you plan on doing so, it may not be a good idea to give this guy another critical job.

Since tasks will take place in specific areas, it makes sense to combine tasks into dwarves who will take care of a specific industry - so Combine (indoor) farming with cooking (not mining), for example.

Most builds recommend combinations such as:

* Woodcutter/Carpenter. Add Axedwarf for added security.
* Mason+ : Apparently, in most many fortresses, the Mason is a very busy man indeed. Recommendations include 'spare miner', 'rarely needed skills' or skills which are not very time-consuming.
* Farmer/Cook, Farmer/Brewer. Basic two-person food team.
* Farmer/Herbalist, Farmer/Brewer/Cook. One bold dwarf to farm and venture outside looking for wild plants, the other to keep busy in the still, kitchen, and indoor farms.
* Boss: Novice [[Negotiator]]/Novice [[Judge of intent]]/Novice [[Appraiser]]. Combine this with a single time-intensive task such as Masonry and optionally turn off all hauling tasks right at the start of the game. This guy will be your Boss and Trader, make him record keeper too.
* Craftsdwarf, depending on your strategy - e.g. [[glass]] maker, weapon smith or armor smith, sometimes combined with related tasks from that industry (furnace operating, wood burning). Typically an item hauler in the initial months of your fortress, this dwarf may become one of your most valuable dwarves later.

=== Items ===

Some basics are recommended for all builds. You definitely need to bring one [[pick]] for each [[miner]], some [[food]], and some [[alcohol]]. Everything else depends on your strategy and on how tough or leisurely a challenge you want the game to be.

Note: Many builds recommend that you bring many different cheap foods, with quantities ending in a "1" or a "6". This is to maximize the number of [[barrels]] you start with, since most foodstuffs fit five to a barrel. More barrels will let you build a larger stockpile for your first winter and conserves the [[wood]] you harvest in the early game for beds and other necessities.

== Fortress Sites ==
Each fortress site offers particular challenges and opportunities. The starting builds below can and should be adjusted depending on the specific vision you have of your fortress ... and what it will take to stay [[losing|alive]] where you're going!

=== Mountains ===
Most dwarven fortresses are founded along the edges of mountain ranges on sites that combine abundant ore and access to the outside world. Magma and rare metals lure settlers here, but [[goblins]], [[chasm]] dwellers, and even [[giant eagle]]s are potent threats.

Trees and plants do not grow at high elevations, so you'll want to include non-mountainous areas to obtain lumber and food - or, failing this, to pack a lot of extra food and logs.

Other consideration is elevation range. The game allows access up to 15 levels above the highest peak and 15 levels below the deepest valley, so steeper slopes means much more diggable area. The downside is lag; more levels also means more CPU burden (this can cripple a fortress - be careful).

Be sure to include a stream on the map; running water is (almost) essential for any fortress. In Cold and Freezing climates streams and lakes will often be frozen year-round and your dwarves may quickly die of exposure. Choose Temperate or tropical zones for an easier game.

=== Wooded Plains (with trees and plants) ===
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, guaranteed agriculture both on the surface and underground, fewer hostile fortresses and caves, and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents.

The greatest disadvantage is a lack of rock to mine. Fewer elevations means fewer exploitable z-levels. The first few levels below the surface are almost always soil, peat, loam, clay, or sand, none of which offers much (or any) gems, ore, or building material. An [[aquifer]], if present, may bar all access to stone until you freeze, pump out, or find a way through the water.

=== Desert, Glaciers, and Barren (few or no trees and plants) ===
Treeless (or near-treeless) biomes 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 glaciers are wonderful for those with slower machines, as there's little to burden the CPU but your dwarves and livestock. Deserts and barren areas often have sand; with a sufficient source of energy (preferably magma), you can build almost anything out of unlimited glass.

=== Ocean Side ===
An interesting combination of a few of the above locations, beaches 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 river.
There is also a likelihood that the settlement will fall between two biomes, potentially hazardous if the player expects a peaceful oceanside meadow, without realizing the ocean is full of amphibious zombie whales.

== Basic Build ==

The first order of business is simply to survive. Here is a simple, somewhat paranoid, way to do this.

==== Dwarves & skills ====
On most (but not all) sites, you'll want to get food, brew drink, mine, make wood and stone items, and trade. Whatever additional skills you purchase, be sure to cover these. If you need more points to buy skills (and it's a good idea to buy lots of skills), remove a battle axe.

* 2 miners
* 1 mason/mechanic
* 1 carpenter/woodcutter
* 1 grower/brewer/cook. He's responsible for making prepared meals and drinks.
* either a herbalist/grower, or a fisherdwarf, or a hunter. The first gets you lots of brewable plants on maps with plants, the second gets you food and bones on maps with water (in maps with dangerous fish such as [[carp]] fishing is suicidal so be careful), and the third gets you meat and bones on maps with animals. Herbalism is usually the safest of the three.
* 1 spare dwarf. You might make him the leader and broker; if so, give him at least novice [[appraiser]] skill so you know what stuff is worth. You might make him responsible for making trade goods, or turn him into your first soldier, or you might just give him some skills you want to experiment with.

==== Items ====
You want picks, food, and drink. Everything else is optional. The suggestions below assume you spent the maximum possible on skills. We'll pack lots just to be safe.

* 2 [[pick]]s - 1 per miner
* 1 [[battle axe]] - so you can chop wood
* 1 [[Anvil]] - so you can make weapons, trade crafts, and such
* 20 units of drink: [[dwarven ale]], [[dwarven beer]], and [[dwarven rum]] are all good. [[dwarven wine]] you'll get through brewing.
* 30 [[plump helmets]] - They're good to eat and produce 5 units of booze for each one brewed at a [[still]].
* 5 turtles - they get you bones and shells
* 20 [[plump helmet spawn]] - for planting.
* 2 dogs - to guard against thieves and help kill intruders.
* (optional) other kinds of seeds and rock nuts
* (optional) 1 of many different kinds of meats for extra barrels
* (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

If the map is treeless, remove the battle axe and spend the freed points on more plump helmets and logs (you're going to run out however many you bring...).

If you're willing to wait a year or two to do any metalworking and you're sure traders will come, remove the anvil and spend the freed points on such things as skills, food and drink, wood, leather, raw materials, or weapons.

=== '''Rapid Expansion''' ===
A plan for quick growth followed up by heavy immigration works well both as an early game strategy and as an assist for a late game foundation. Starting off with the anvil is also much less troublesome if you drop both battleaxes and make your own picks too. Don't worry though, you'll be digging out cavernous villas in no time, and cheaply too, with this build. Food and stone will be in abundance and you'll have excellent worker time utilization. And due to the early metalworking and distributed skills your dwarves have, soon you'll have powerful steel-armored warrior workers that'll form the bedrock of a city guard.

Always build a wood burning furnace, Smelter and Metalsmith shop first, and take apart that wagon for extra logs. Either burn those logs into charcoal, or smelt coal into fuel, and then make your tools.

==== Dwarves & skills ====
By dropping both picks and axes you'll be able to afford a lot of useful skills, and you'll be able to get a metalsmithing shop running within the first seconds of your game, so no precious time is lost. Your Dwarves are divided largely into two groups, your laborers (Butcher, Baker and candle--er, Brewer) and your craftsdwarves. Essentially a Blue collar/White collar divide to set up a nice class war later. Also, by having such wide assortments of skills, your dwarves will get lots of attribute bonuses and become extremely capable fighters by the time you need to worry about that.

Laborers are given mining and growing skills with some extra to cover food production. The Ranger is the oddball, but will spend his early days gathering plants and hauling items, so fits here. Your first order of business with them is to dig that top later out quickly and get some farms started and fully stocked. Then, as they grow, you can go back to digging out the rest of the base.

* The Baker: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +3 Cooking.
* The Brewer: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +3 Brewing.
* The Butcher: +5 Mining, +2 Growing, +1 Butchering, +1 Tanning, +1 Leatherworking. Make some bags for sand and the Quarry Bushes and a butcher's shop before the Ranger starts his hunts.

* The Ranger: +3 Woodcutter, +3 Carpenter, +1 Herbalist, +1 Ambusher, +2 Axedwarf. Be sure to assign a war dog or two to this guy, since he's the only one who needs to go outside. Once he gets an axe, he'll also be a competent fighter and hunter and will start with armor due to +1 ambusher.

Craftsdwarves focus on running shops, building trade goods, and making the outpost as profitable as possible in the first year, to attract additional immigrants that can be thrown into the mines or toil in the mushroom fields. They should have very broad skill bases, but the actual choice of leader is up to you.

* The Smithy: +1 Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Metalsmith, Furnace Operator, Wood Burner, Stone Crafting, Bone Carving. This guy will cover all of your rarely needed creation skills, and make your picks and axes. After this he usually ends up making scads of stone crafts for sale. Glassworking, gem cutting, and potash making are good as well, and even with novice in all areas you'll build fast enough for these rare items.
* The Foreman: +3 Building Design, +3 Mechanic, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper. Building design and mechanical work is extremely quick work, so instead give him nobleman skills to spend the rest of his work hours on. These are extremely useful in the long-term.
* The Freemason: +5 Masonry. It seems a bit silly to give him just one primary skill, but Masons are usually working 24 hours a day on all variety of stone doors, chairs and tables.

There's a variation if you want a more 'compact' design of those last two:

* The Construction Worker: +5 Masonry, +3 Mechanic, +2 Building Design.
* The Lazy Boss: +3 Fishing, +3 Fish Cleaning, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper.

This is not as useful or safe, as Fishing is a time-intensive skill, so it takes him away from his record keeping job for extended periods and a Carp might kill him. It also forces your Mason to get behind on Queues every time someone needs a trap build or a workshop set up. Halting book-keeping doesn't slow down any production, so the original stat-spread can work out better.

==== Items ====
The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional. A point of contention is the Iron Axe you'll be making, as some may prefer it to be steel. Steel Bars cost 150, which is three times the cost of iron, and only provide a small damage bonus and no chopping speed bonus. If you start in an area with [[Limestone]] or [[Chalk]] you'll soon be able to smelt Steel with your functioning metalsmith shop anyway. If you're on a map without trees, well, I suppose you don't need the axe at all. But in that case you'd be better off taking the picks, dropping the anvil, and buying a few hundred logs.

* 1 [[Anvil]] - this is what makes it all possible, and helps you get started faster.
* 3 [[Copper|Copper bars]] - these cost 10 each, and will be your picks. Three for the price of one, literally.
* 1 [[Iron|Iron bar]] - this costs 50, and will be your axe. The 40 extra is worth it for the damage increase you get over copper or bronze.
* 2 [[Bituminous coal]] or [[Log]]s - you can smelt two coal into 4 fuel for the cost of 2 logs. Inexpensive at 3 each, one can afford to bring more.
* 4 cheap stone - any sort works, such as inexpensive [[granite]]. You'll use these to make your first three buildings.

That's what you need to get started, but this is a guide for the items on your list. This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost. Instead, encourage your dwarves to eat the turtles and meat out of the barrels and cook wine biscuits. Your farms will be running amazingly quickly anyway, and for half the cost of a single helmet you can make feed several dwarves on baked beer. You'll get enough seeds from brewing the [[plump helmets]] soon enough.

* 26 of [[Dwarven wine|Wine]], [[Dwarven rum|Rum]], [[Dwarven beer|Beer]] and [[Dwarven ale|Ale]]
* 36 of [[rock nut]]s, [[Plump helmet spawn]] and [[Pig tail]] [[seed]]s
* 11 [[turtle]]s - these hilarious little dudes are way better than the meat you usually set out with, what with all the bones they leave. I use these as 'before farming' rations and build up a good supply of bone bolts. Shells are also valuable to have around.
* 1 of each other 2 cost meat, for extra empty barrels. Barrels cost 10, so getting any food below that can save you money.
* 2 [[Dogs]] - preferably war dogs or hunting dogs. Assign these to your Ranger. Bring a pair so you can make more dogs.
* 1 [[Horse]] - they're relatively inexpensive and will help you begin breeding horses faster, as you are nearly always getting a horse with your wagon. Livestock are a valuable commodity for meat and bones, and you want as many of these as possible 'emergency rations' on hand.
* 4 [[Leather]] - you need leather bags to process [[quarry bush]]es and to gather sand for glass. Four will be enough, and you can get it for only 20.

If you do it exactly as written, you will end up with a few points left over. Grab some extra food or upgrade one of your copper bars to an actual copper pick, if you want a faster start. These foodstuffs will last a very long time if managed properly, so get your farms going and start preparing for next year now.

=== Metalbashing/Glassworking ===
Heavy metalbashing and glassworking requires a site with 1) abundant fuel and 2) raw materials. Magma is ideal but large coal seams or a forest will also suffice. A site with either limestone or chalk means nearly unlimited steel. Any site with "sand" (not "loamy sand" or the like) will permit glassworking. Failing these, any place with lots of rock, trees, and preferably sand will work fine. Your biggest choice when setting up is whether to optimize for a fast start or long-term success.

==== Dwarves & Skills ====
Unless you're trying a low-skills challenge, each dwarf should get the maximum possible number (currently 10) of skill boosts; remove a battle axe to free up needed points. Individual preferences can be mighty handy; if you have a dwarf who likes steel, clear glass, crossbows, siege engine parts, or something else equally interesting, he's an ideal candidate for matching skills.

* A Carpenter/Leader: Points into Carpenter, Wood Cutter, and a bunch of nobles' skills, including at least novice Negotiator and Appraiser. This dwarf should have good inter-personal thoughts/preferences.
* A Mason/Mechanic: Points into Mason, Building Designer, and Mechanic. Adding more points to Mason gets construction materials and furniture faster. More points to Mechanic allows faster trap-setting. Adding Appraiser and/or Negotiator skills gives you a back-up leader or broker. A boost to [[Wrestling]] gets you better on-call defense.
* A Farmer/Herbalist (assumes the site has at least some plants): This dwarf will gather the plant material you need to brew drinks. Points into Grower and Herbalist. Leftover skill raises should be invested in a valuable, hard to raise trade skill such as [[Blacksmith]], [[Metal_crafter|Metal Crafter]], or perhaps [[Glassmaker]] or [[Clothier]].
* A Farmer/Brewer/Cook: This dwarf is responsible for keeping your community fed and liquored up. Points into Grower, Brewer, and (optionally) Cook. Leftover skill raises should be invested as for the Farmer/Herbalist.
* A Craftsdwarf: Points into whatever hard-to-raise skills you most want. [[Armorsmith]], [[Weaponsmith]], [[Bowyer]], [[Glassmaker]], and even [[Siege_engineer|Siege Engineer]], [[Clothier]], or [[Gem_setter|Gem Setter]] can all be good choices depending on your setup. If you plan to bash metal, remember to spend a few points on Furnace Operator and (if needed) Wood Burning.
* 2 Miners/Soldiers: Points into both mining and military skills. The miners first get legendary and then become extremely powerful fighters. Remember that it's much easier to increase Mining skill than most of the military skills (especially Armor User), but also that you'll want capable miners immediately.

With this setup, you have several ways to make the trade goods you'll need to buy what you lack. Metal goblets, stone mugs, handwear, footwear, mechanisms, bone or wood crossbows, prepared meals, or bone and shell crafts are all solid choices.

Food and drink for the first few seasons are assured by first cooking all the meat to free up barrels, then brewing your plump helmets (and any gathered plants) to make booze.

==== Items (all starts) ====
* 2 [[pick]]s
* 6 or 11 of each of [[dwarven ale]], [[dwarven beer]], and [[dwarven rum]]. With abundant brewable plants and lots of wood you don't actually need any starting booze, but it's nice to have a backup.
* at least 11 [[plump helmet]]s. Bring a lot more if you anticipate problems with gathering brewable plants.
* at least 6 [[turtle]]s. Not only are they good eating, they ensure you have the [[shell]]s and [[bone]]s needed to satisfy [[strange mood]]s.
* 1 of every kind of meat that costs 2 or 4, as each type of meat will be packed in its own free barrel and cooking the meat will release that barrel for use. If you don't like this feature, bring more turtles or plump helmets instead.
* Unless the map is glacial, or you intend only outdoor agriculture, bring plenty of seeds as well. A minimum of 15 plump helmet spawn are essential for a quick start to underground agriculture; rock nuts, sweet pod seeds, pig tail seeds, and cave wheat seeds will diversify your meals and drinks and let you set up for clothes-making. Seeds are packed in bags.
* (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

===== Items (fast start) =====
* 1 [[Anvil]]
* no [[battle axe]] - you'll save points by making it yourself.
* only a few logs (just enough to get started with), unless the map has no trees

See [[Make Your Own Weapons]] for more details on what to bring and how to make the battle axes you need to chop wood.

===== Items (moderate start) =====
Warning: Going without an anvil will slow you down until you get one in trade (which normally takes about 6 or 7 seasons) and might even cost you a failed [[strange mood]].
* no [[Anvil]]
* 1 [[battle axe]] (at present, steel is the only option)
* few or no logs, unless the map has no trees
* with the points you save by not bringing an anvil, buy logs, bars of base metals you expect your site to lack, and (if needed) coal (for fuel and coke) and/or dolomite (for flux).

===== Items (slow start) =====
* no [[Anvil]]
* no [[battle axe]]s
* lots of logs - at least 25 on a heavily forested map. You can survive without them, but it's a lot cheaper to buy logs to make barrels than to bring more drink.

=== Everybody Mines Build ===
One build that is actually very easy to use is to take no mining skills and 7 or more cheap picks. Then, pick a site with sand or dirt or clay, which is extremely easy to mine. Assign all of your dwarves except your woodcutter to mining, and dig out some big storage areas to begin with in the sand. By the time you have a basic fort laid out (less than a season) they will all have plenty of skill ups and will be able to go through regular rock quite quickly. Then you can turn them off mining, and turn any immigrants on mining and have them do the same skilling up on sand and dirt. This allows you to rapidly increase dwarf attributes, so they can later learn some other skill which aligns well with their attribute bonuses. Also, it makes them more dwarfy!

=== Free Equipment ===

Dwarves who start with the ambusher skill may get some leather armor, a crossbow and some bolts for free.
: As of 27.176.38c, this appears to only be true if they have *only* military skills: ambusher/marksman/armor user/wrestler gets free gear, but replace any of those skills with something civilian and they show up in street clothes. (This has only been tested in cases where the civilian skill was their new highest skill; it might work to give them minor civilian skills, but that did not work in past versions.)

=== Challenge Builds ===
If you want a challenge try some [[Challenge_Builds]].

{{Starting FAQ}}

40d Talk:Starting build

2008-05-19T12:00:37Z

Kidinnu: Noted current behavior of ambusher skill free equipment

Hey, I'll have to see who wrote these starting builds and see if I can't contact him/her, but "About & Challenges" sounds uh... not informational? How about "Overview"? I don't want to edit your work here without your approval (even though I could do so on my own.) [[User:Schm0|Schm0]] 22:14, 31 October 2007 (EDT)
: Feel free to adjust the "About & Challenges" to anything else. It was just something to group one of the blocks of text and encourage others to write similar blocks of text. "Overview" sounds much better. --[[User:Shagie|Shagie]] 22:55, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

i wrote the dwarves & skills part and wrote a small info on why to take this kind of a build as most of the items you take are heavily dependant on the area you are in.

Overviw sounds better though so i agree with that

also for the guy who asked why 10 bags; bags might be hard to come by in this version since cave spiders arent always there, which leads to little or no silk in the starting areas, and hunting might not be the best idea if you have dark gnomes or something like that in the area, and if you dont have any bags, making a glass indrusty will prove very hard.

:No ''sand'' on a map makes making glass even harder. No, impossible.--[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] 05:52, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== trade goods ==

The mountain build suggests lots of turtle for trade goods as you'll have no wood, however shell and bone goods are worth next to nothing and roasts are worth enough to build out whole caravan. So rather then crafter and wood cutter skills I'd just go with a high-level cooking and sell excess food. (on the other hand shell and bone goods don't rot away ¬_¬) --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 06:03, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Food ==

The builds suggest taking at least 6 of each 2 cost food items, but I would suggest only one of each 2 food item (for a free barrel) and a lot of turtles, which leave both shells and bones. As other meats only leave either a bone or nothing at all. So for the easiest game use turtles. --[[User:Soyweiser|Soyweiser]] 09:16, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Steel Axes? ==

I noticed in the build it says to get 2 copper picks and one steel axe. The first real attempt I made at getting a fortress going, the first thing I did was ditch the _steel_ axe in favour of a cheaper material, and got a better pick. Steel items cost 300. Copper costs 20. While it makes sense to have a few extra copper picks in case your miner gets killed, a good solid iron pick will make the early mining (And his skill increase) go a lot faster. Contrarily, you really don't need steel axes. Iron is more than enough. Even copper will do just fine. And you really only need one. And, rather than ditching your anvil for stuff, try ditching your steel axe for 100 logs. Thats more than enough to last you till you have a smelter going and can make your own axes. - Stormlock 7:03 Nov 1

:Steel axes are the only axes available on the preparation screen now. Does anyone know if this is a bug or not? --[[User:Xazak|Xazak]] 18:47, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

:Digging speed is not affected by the material the pick is made out of, as explained on the [[pick]] page. Neither are [[battle axe]]s. Therefore, you should just take the cheapest one. I've never been able to pick any axes other than steel either, however. --[[User:Valdemar|Valdemar]] 17:33, 10 November 2007 (EST)

== Layout ==

Should we really be dividing this up by biome? Seems to me it would be a better idea to lay this out as a series of options, e.g. "If you're settling in a mountainous/treeless region, drop your axes and take logs instead" etc. The new choices for landing site seem too diverse to keep the old formula methods of deciding on party goods. --[[User:Xazak|Xazak]] 18:48, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Challenge or game goals? ==

I added "Hunting party" & "Immigration & customs enforcement", but I'm not really sure where the line between challenge builds and [[Game_goals|Game goals]] lies. Any guidance? --[[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 08:18, 19 November 2007 (EST)

== IOGT ==
I added AA to the IOGT title since ... I've never even heard of the IOGT and had to Google it. --[[User:Geofferic|Geofferic]] 11:13, 19 November 2007 (EST)

== Created an ice-centric challenge. ==

Feel free to edit it to make it more coherent or fun. --[[User:Digi|Digi]] 03:50, 27 November 2007 (EST)

== 2.2 and 2.3.2.4 ==

These two have a lot of redundancy between them. I can't really think of a good way to merge them though, since there is definitely information in each that should probably stay separate. --[[User:Qalnor|Qalnor]] 16:06, 2 December 2007 (EST)
:Agreed. Moved some advice to external linked page. [[User:Fedor|Fedor]] 03:46, 12 December 2007 (EST)

==The Mad Butcher==
You're doing it wrong, you need to butcher the animals through the Status\Animals menu instead of pit-killing them. - Jackard
<blockquote>
''"If you want to take this even further, bring along a ton of kittens instead of any meat. Even the cheapest meat is going to run you 2 apiece, which for a stack of six is 12 points. A kitten is 11 points. In addition to the stack of meat you get a stack of bones and a skull as well as a raw hide. So much for so little, <s>and you could probably get a butcher to legendary in a single year if you splattered all the kittens first.</s>" - IantheKorean''
:''"But you still have the issue that kitten corpses aren't -- for some obscure reason -- butcherable. The only way tame animals can be cut up for meat is through the menu, and you can only pit tame animals, so it doesn't work unless you modify the raws." [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2677834&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=42#post336292122 - TouretteDog]''
</blockquote>
:Right you are! I forgot to add the edit to the raws. Updating... BTW, do you know who first suggested this? I wanted to give them credit, but I can't seem to find the thread again. --[[User:ERoberts|ERoberts]] 08:33, 12 December 2007 (EST)
::The link is on my Talk page. --[[User:Jackard|Jackard]] 12:42, 12 December 2007 (EST)
::It's more broken than that though point 7 talks about setting it up so the butcher cannot escape, but if that is the case then you'll be hard pressed to feed the fort as in point 9 --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 09:00, 12 December 2007 (EST)
Naw, that's just an engineering challenge! One way to solve it is to make a couple of stockpiles with an airlock mechanic. When the Mad Butcher can access one, haulers are locked out. When the stock pile is full, lock the butcher's door and unlock the haulers door.

==Critique of the "Rapid Expansion" build==
I didn't write it, so I'm not going to rewrite it unless I get approval. But I do have some beefs with it. [[User:Fedor|Fedor]] 03:54, 12 December 2007 (EST)

* The introduction is too wordy for this page and is more suited to a player's guide.
* The cross-training causes some of the dwarves to simultaneously be in demand for several essential early tasks, such as food-preparation and digging both.
* Suggesting a hunter/ranger is a death sentence on some maps; a warning is needed. Also, you also NEVER want to suggest making your leader a fisherdwarf, warning or no; at present, it's just too dangerous a profession at many sites to risk your appraiser/organizer/trader in.
* Strange moods in key trade skills are essential for a truly high-value fortress. The suggested skill set doesn't work at all well with strange moods; most dwarves will get nothing interesting from a strange mood and you don't know what The Smithy will make.
* Instead of the The Smithy being a "jack of all trades", he should be a master of a couple, chosen with both an eye to your fortress location and to his innate preferences. You'll get much more value this way, which is the declared point of this build.
* The comment "This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost." is factually incorrect. A 4-point plump helmet gets you five 2-point booze, plus several seeds, for each one brewed; all of this can become food. I know of no cheaper way to ensure both food and drink than bringing plump helmets.
* Bringing stone is unnecessary to make workshops. Just make the temporary buildings out of logs or raw materials and free them up later.
* The comment "as you are nearly always getting a horse with your wagon" is incorrect in my experience; I've known times when a horse was pulling the wagon, but more likely than not I don't have one.
* The comment "The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional" is totally false for many fortress sites and requires a skilled, experienced player at all others.
* Speaking generally, this build is very much tailored to particular ways of playing the game, assumes particular kinds of site, requires a fair amount of skill, and therefore is - IMHO - not particularly well suited to an introductory page as written.

: Agreed [[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 09:03, 12 December 2007 (EST)

== Starting builds page sucks ==

Frankly, this page sucks. There is too much irrelevant and or useless information. I made a few changes to cut down on the clutter, but the advice on this page stinks. We should focus more on what the best uses of points are instead of personal builds that have little relation to optimal strategy. I don't have time to do this right now. --[[User:Belasarius|Belasarius]] 23:20, 29 January 2008 (EST)

Added an introduction which, hopefully, explains what creating a build is about (skills, items).
I'd suggest moving the discussion of possible environments somewhere, but didn't want to replace that large chapter with a simple ' [[biome]]s' :-) [[User:Samyotix|Samyotix]] 16:51, 19 February 2008 (EST)

== Ambusher Skill? ==

Do you still start with free items? If so, how much Ambusher is needed? Because I just tried this with novice ambushers/proficient marksmen/+4 other dwarves and no one got any crossbows, armor, or bolts. (Which, when your starting ontop of a goblin fortress, is a pretty rude surprise - that your marksdwarves don't actually have weapons).
:Unsigned comment above was [[user:Squirrelloid|Squirrelloid]]
:I believe ambusher has to be the (joint) highest skill level that dwarf has to get the free equipment. --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 10:09, 17 April 2008 (EDT)
::As of 27.176.38c, a Marksdwarf 4/Ambusher 2/Armor User 2/Wrestler 2 gets free armor + weapon + bolts, but if you mix in *any* civilian skills they seem to not get the free equipment. --[[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 08:00, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

40d Talk:Starting build

2007-12-12T14:03:56Z

Kidinnu:

Hey, I'll have to see who wrote these starting builds and see if I can't contact him/her, but "About & Challenges" sounds uh... not informational? How about "Overview"? I don't want to edit your work here without your approval (even though I could do so on my own.) [[User:Schm0|Schm0]] 22:14, 31 October 2007 (EDT)
: Feel free to adjust the "About & Challenges" to anything else. It was just something to group one of the blocks of text and encourage others to write similar blocks of text. "Overview" sounds much better. --[[User:Shagie|Shagie]] 22:55, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

i wrote the dwarves & skills part and wrote a small info on why to take this kind of a build as most of the items you take are heavily dependant on the area you are in.

Overviw sounds better though so i agree with that

also for the guy who asked why 10 bags; bags might be hard to come by in this version since cave spiders arent always there, which leads to little or no silk in the starting areas, and hunting might not be the best idea if you have dark gnomes or something like that in the area, and if you dont have any bags, making a glass indrusty will prove very hard.

:No ''sand'' on a map makes making glass even harder. No, impossible.--[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] 05:52, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== trade goods ==

The mountain build suggests lots of turtle for trade goods as you'll have no wood, however shell and bone goods are worth next to nothing and roasts are worth enough to build out whole caravan. So rather then crafter and wood cutter skills I'd just go with a high-level cooking and sell excess food. (on the other hand shell and bone goods don't rot away ¬_¬) --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 06:03, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Food ==

The builds suggest taking at least 6 of each 2 cost food items, but I would suggest only one of each 2 food item (for a free barrel) and a lot of turtles, which leave both shells and bones. As other meats only leave either a bone or nothing at all. So for the easiest game use turtles. --[[User:Soyweiser|Soyweiser]] 09:16, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Steel Axes? ==

I noticed in the build it says to get 2 copper picks and one steel axe. The first real attempt I made at getting a fortress going, the first thing I did was ditch the _steel_ axe in favour of a cheaper material, and got a better pick. Steel items cost 300. Copper costs 20. While it makes sense to have a few extra copper picks in case your miner gets killed, a good solid iron pick will make the early mining (And his skill increase) go a lot faster. Contrarily, you really don't need steel axes. Iron is more than enough. Even copper will do just fine. And you really only need one. And, rather than ditching your anvil for stuff, try ditching your steel axe for 100 logs. Thats more than enough to last you till you have a smelter going and can make your own axes. - Stormlock 7:03 Nov 1

:Steel axes are the only axes available on the preparation screen now. Does anyone know if this is a bug or not? --[[User:Xazak|Xazak]] 18:47, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

:Digging speed is not affected by the material the pick is made out of, as explained on the [[pick]] page. Neither are [[battle axe]]s. Therefore, you should just take the cheapest one. I've never been able to pick any axes other than steel either, however. --[[User:Valdemar|Valdemar]] 17:33, 10 November 2007 (EST)

== Layout ==

Should we really be dividing this up by biome? Seems to me it would be a better idea to lay this out as a series of options, e.g. "If you're settling in a mountainous/treeless region, drop your axes and take logs instead" etc. The new choices for landing site seem too diverse to keep the old formula methods of deciding on party goods. --[[User:Xazak|Xazak]] 18:48, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Challenge or game goals? ==

I added "Hunting party" & "Immigration & customs enforcement", but I'm not really sure where the line between challenge builds and [[Game_goals|Game goals]] lies. Any guidance? --[[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 08:18, 19 November 2007 (EST)

== IOGT ==
I added AA to the IOGT title since ... I've never even heard of the IOGT and had to Google it. --[[User:Geofferic|Geofferic]] 11:13, 19 November 2007 (EST)

== Created an ice-centric challenge. ==

Feel free to edit it to make it more coherent or fun. --[[User:Digi|Digi]] 03:50, 27 November 2007 (EST)

== 2.2 and 2.3.2.4 ==

These two have a lot of redundancy between them. I can't really think of a good way to merge them though, since there is definitely information in each that should probably stay separate. --[[User:Qalnor|Qalnor]] 16:06, 2 December 2007 (EST)
:Agreed. Moved some advice to external linked page. [[User:Fedor|Fedor]] 03:46, 12 December 2007 (EST)

==The Mad Butcher==
You're doing it wrong, you need to butcher the animals through the Status\Animals menu instead of pit-killing them:
<blockquote>
''"If you want to take this even further, bring along a ton of kittens instead of any meat. Even the cheapest meat is going to run you 2 apiece, which for a stack of six is 12 points. A kitten is 11 points. In addition to the stack of meat you get a stack of bones and a skull as well as a raw hide. So much for so little, <s>and you could probably get a butcher to legendary in a single year if you splattered all the kittens first.</s>" - IantheKorean''
:''"But you still have the issue that kitten corpses aren't -- for some obscure reason -- butcherable. The only way tame animals can be cut up for meat is through the menu, and you can only pit tame animals, so it doesn't work unless you modify the raws." [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2677834&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=42#post336292122 - TouretteDog]''
</blockquote>
Right you are! I forgot to add the edit to the raws. Updating... 
BTW, do you know who first suggested this? I wanted to give them credit, but I can't seem to find the thread again. --[[User:ERoberts|ERoberts]] 08:33, 12 December 2007 (EST)
:It's more broken than that though point 7 talks about setting it up so the butcher cannot escape, but if that is the case then you'll be hard pressed to feed the fort as in point 9 --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 09:00, 12 December 2007 (EST)

==Critique of the "Rapid Expansion" build==
I didn't write it, so I'm not going to rewrite it unless I get approval. But I do have some beefs with it. [[User:Fedor|Fedor]] 03:54, 12 December 2007 (EST)

* The introduction is too wordy for this page and is more suited to a player's guide.
* The cross-training causes some of the dwarves to simultaneously be in demand for several essential early tasks, such as food-preparation and digging both.
* Suggesting a hunter/ranger is a death sentence on some maps; a warning is needed. Also, you also NEVER want to suggest making your leader a fisherdwarf, warning or no; at present, it's just too dangerous a profession at many sites to risk your appraiser/organizer/trader in.
* Strange moods in key trade skills are essential for a truly high-value fortress. The suggested skill set doesn't work at all well with strange moods; most dwarves will get nothing interesting from a strange mood and you don't know what The Smithy will make.
* Instead of the The Smithy being a "jack of all trades", he should be a master of a couple, chosen with both an eye to your fortress location and to his innate preferences. You'll get much more value this way, which is the declared point of this build.
* The comment "This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost." is factually incorrect. A 4-point plump helmet gets you five 2-point booze, plus several seeds, for each one brewed; all of this can become food. I know of no cheaper way to ensure both food and drink than bringing plump helmets.
* Bringing stone is unnecessary to make workshops. Just make the temporary buildings out of logs or raw materials and free them up later.
* The comment "as you are nearly always getting a horse with your wagon" is incorrect in my experience; I've known times when a horse was pulling the wagon, but more likely than not I don't have one.
* The comment "The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional" is totally false for many fortress sites and requires a skilled, experienced player at all others.
* Speaking generally, this build is very much tailored to particular ways of playing the game, assumes particular kinds of site, requires a fair amount of skill, and therefore is - IMHO - not particularly well suited to an introductory page as written.

: Agreed [[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 09:03, 12 December 2007 (EST)

40d:Design strategies

2007-12-07T19:29:34Z

Kidinnu: Remove diagram & caption that appeared twice on the page.

==Fortress defense==

See [[fortress defense]].

==Entrance designs==

===Flooded entrance===

Using a chamber as your entrance alongside a chamber full of water and some machinery you can flood or drain the entrance at will.

The basic premise requires two [[lever]]s, two [[screw pump]]s and two [[gear assemblies]]. The amount of power required and the number of additional components needed to get the power to the screw pumps varies depending on distance/setup.
One pump is placed to draw from chamber 1 and dump into chamber 2. The other is set in reverse. A gear assembly is placed next to each pump and connected to the main power system. Each gear is linked to a lever.
Now at the flip of a switch you can submerge your entrance with water or magma for easy, secure defense against creatures that aren't amphibious or magma-dwelling, depending.

[[Image:Entflood.jpg]]

The picture above shows the design in action. The green pump is currently on while the red has been disconnected through the grey marked axle. The yellow X is just to mark that there is a channel under the axle.

=== 3D map format ===
For more information on how to dig passages and structures in a 3D map, see [[digging]].

==Interior design==
It may seem obvious to experienced players but it should be stated explicitly: for maximal efficiency your dwarves should spend the least amount of time moving about and the most time doing productive things. Fortress interior design is critical to productivity.

===Bedroom design===
Enterprising players often try to find a design for their living quarter area which is either very space efficient or easy on the eye. This subject haven't been tackled much yet but you can see the different designs most often used by players of older versions{{ver|DF 0.23.130.23a and down}} [http://archive.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Bedroom_Design here] on the old Wiki. Most of them are still applicable on the newer versions{{ver|DF 0.27.169.32a and up}} but could possibly be heavily modified to benefit from the new Z-axis stairs placing.
===Workshop Logistics===

At a certain point, the most important thing for your fortress is not that you have workshops, but that they are placed efficiently.

=WWWWWW=WWWWWW=
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=oooooo=oooooo=
=oooooo=oooooo=
=oooooo=oooooo=
...............
...............
...............
===============

The idea is that there is a wide hallway at the bottom for easy access for haulers. The workshops are at the top because much less dwarf-hours will be spent moving to the workshop itself than haulers moving to the stockpiles. You pair workshops that have similar inputs or similar outputs or where the output of one is the input of another. Examples: Pair a mechanic's workshop with a mason's workshop because both consume stone and produce furniture. If multiple inputs are required, it is better to split the 3x6 space into specialized stockpiles rather than having a single 'input' stockpile because you want to make sure that there is always some of every input. Use the 'take from stockpile' interface to fill these subsidiary stockpiles from your main stockpile and vice versa.

Another good way to do this is with the stockpiles on the next Z-level, making it slightly more efficient, like this:

Level 0:

===============
=WWWWWW=WWWWWW=
=WWWWWW=WWWWWW=
=WWWWWW=WWWWWW=
...>......>....
===============

Level -1:

===============
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=iiiiii=iiiiii=
=..<...=..<...=
=oooooo=oooooo=
=oooooo=oooooo=
=oooooo=oooooo=
...............
...............
...............
===============

=== Alternate Workshop Design ===

One important consideration of workshops includes design to account for moody dwarves. Open workshops might be easy and convenient, but make containment in the case of a berserk dwarf difficult. One such layout that takes this into consideration is as follows:

=========
=WWWXWWW=
=WWW.WWW=
=WWW.WWW=
=.......=
=WWW.WWW=
=WWW.WWW=
=WWW.WWW=
====+====

Key: W: Workshop, X: up/downstaircase, =: wall, +: door.

Stockpiles are placed above and below the room, generally one for raw materials and another for finished materials. Similar workshops can be grouped together for easier checking on, and the door can be locked should a moody dwarf's wishes be unmet.

====Fluid workshop locations====
Alternatively, you can employ a "work site" methodology where workshops are constructed and destroyed as necessary. For example, if you mine out a huge dining hall and it is completely filled with stone, build a masonry shop in the hall to manufacture tables and chairs. This eliminates the need for a stone hauler because your mason only has to travel a few squares to get raw material. In addition it makes furniture hauling more efficient because the tables and chairs are right next to their eventual location. And of course it clears stone out of your dining hall, eliminating the need for a refuse hauler to dump it all.

==Miscellaneous strategies==
===Use for soil layers===
[[Soil]] layers (such as clay, loam, etc.) - which may at first seem to be of secondary importance - are very useful for large storage areas, as they do not leave rock behind when dug through and may be excavated much faster by comparison. You can also farm on soil tiles without first making them muddy.

Since soil cannot be smoothed or detailed, it is a less than ideal medium to assign rooms in. Workshops do not have happy thoughts for increased surrounding worth, so if proximity to another area is not an issue, soil is a great place to put them.

Since soil is primarily located near the surface, where a trade depot is often built, it is very useful to dig out large spaces for furniture and finished goods in soil for several reasons. First, it produces no stone, and is thus very fast to dig out. Secondly, having finished goods as close to the trade depot as possible is necessary for efficient trading.

==Dams==

[[Image:dam.jpg]]

In Dwarf Fortress, a dam can be built across a [[river]] or [[brook]]. This has several uses:

*Stop a river from flowing altogether
*Modify a river's path
*Create a pretty lake or functional reservoir
*Create water-based traps

=== Dam construction ===

Constructing a dam (probably) requires the draining of a river so [[walls]] or [[floodgates]] can be built on the river bed. If your map freezes during winter this should be easy.

Once the river has been drained you may have to dig into to river bed to be able to place buildings. It will look a bit like this:
[[Image:Dam2.JPG]]

After you have access to a river bed simply build a series of walls on top of it, blocking the path of the river. When the water comes back it will fill up the gap as far as it must to let the blocked water flow further. If you build your dam up to the level of the river the water will stop at the dam (it will not overflow). Since this defies logic it may be fixed in future releases.

You can create a massive flood if you build a dam out of floodgates and open them all at once.

[[Category:Guides]]

40d Talk:Ambusher

2007-12-07T19:23:58Z

Kidinnu: Agree with Mindsnap about "hunting" redirect, but not sure where to put new page.

== Unconscious spotters? ==

The article states that you can be seen by an unconscious creature when standing next to it, yet I always get back into sneak mode as soon as I get an enemy unconscious, and it always has worked, as did passing right next to an unconscious creature. Never got a chance to gouge out eyes in the new version, but in the old DF, I could start sneaking very close to a cyclops, about three tiles, maybe two, which is more than close enough for him to normally see you and prevent you from sneaking. I'd like someone to confirm this, but I'm fairly certain the part about unconscious creatures is false. --[[User:Ryke Masters|Ryke Masters]] 20:45, 2 December 2007 (EST)
:Yeah, I'm pretty sure that statement is false. I'll remove it in a day unless anyone thinks it true. --[[User:Karlito|Karlito]] 00:55, 3 December 2007 (EST)

The "hunting" skill link redirects to this page, which is kind of useless. [[User:Mindsnap|Mindsnap]] 15:49, 6 December 2007 (EST)
: Well, there is no hunting skill, and hunters all use Ambushing. I figure there ought to be some sort of "activity" page that describes how to hunt, equipment, products, risks, etc - where should that be, though? Not here, although there should probably be a link from here to it. [[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 14:23, 7 December 2007 (EST)

40d:Cave spider

2007-12-04T18:36:28Z

Kidinnu: Have also found cave spiders in chasms

Cave spiders may occur in maps that have a [[cave]], [[chasm]], or [[underground river]]. They leave small webs strewn around the area, which are automatically collected by any worker who has the [[weaving]] skill activated and access to a [[loom]], which automatically produces the work task "[[collect webs]]."

See also: [[Giant cave spider]] and [[phantom spider]].

40d:Starting builds

2007-12-03T19:31:28Z

Kidinnu: Spelling fix jewe[l]ry

== Fortress Site ==
Each fortress site offers particular challenges and opportunities; the starting builds below should be adjusted depending on what sort of fortress you envision ... and what it will take to stay alive where you're going!

=== Mountains ===
Most dwarven fortresses are founded along the edges of mountain ranges on sites that combine abundant ore and access to the outside world. Magma and rare metals lure settlers here, but [[goblins]], [[chasm]] dwellers, and even [[giant eagle]]s are potent threats.

Trees and plants do not grow at high elevations, so you'll want to include non-mountainous areas to obtain lumber and food - or, failing this, to pack a lot of extra food and logs.

Other consideration is elevation range. The game allows access up to 15 levels above the highest peak and 15 levels below the deepest valley, so steeper slopes means much more diggable area. The downside is lag; more levels also means more CPU burden (this can cripple a fortress - be careful).

Be sure to include a stream on the map; running water is (almost) essential for any fortress. In Cold and Freezing climates streams and lakes will often be frozen year-round and your dwarves may quickly die of exposure. Choose Temperate or tropical zones for an easier game.

=== Wooded Plains (with trees and plants) ===
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, guaranteed agriculture both on the surface and underground, fewer hostile fortresses and caves, and (unless frozen) more abundant water. There are even (rare) magma vents.

The greatest disadvantage is lack of rock to mine. Fewer elevations means fewer exploitable z-levels. The first few levels below the surface are almost always soil, peat, loam, clay, or sand, none of which offers much (or any) gems, ore, or building material. An [[aquifer]], if present, may bar all access to stone until you freeze, pump out, or find a way through the water.

=== Desert, Glaciers, and Barren (few or no trees and plants) ===
Treeless (or near-treeless) biomes 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 glaciers are wonderful for those with slower machines, as there's little to burden the CPU but your dwarves and livestock. Deserts and barren areas often have sand; with a sufficient source of energy (preferably magma), you can build almost anything out of unlimited glass.

=== Ocean Side ===

An interesting combination of a few of the above locations, beaches 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 river.
There is also a likelihood that the settlement will fall between two biomes, potentially hazardous if the player expects a peaceful oceanside meadow, without realizing the ocean is full of amphibious zombie whales.

== Starting Builds ==
Many of the quantities suggested end in a "1" or a "6"; this is to maximize the number of [[barrels]] you start with, since most foodstuffs fit five to a barrel. More barrels will let you build a larger stockpile for your first winter and conserves the [[wood]] you harvest in the early game for beds and other necessities.

=== Basic ===
The first order of business is simply to survive. Here is a simple, somewhat paranoid, way to do this.

==== Dwarves & skills ====
On most (but not all) sites, you'll want to get food, brew drink, mine, make wood and stone items, and trade. Whatever additional skills you purchase, be sure to cover these. If you need more points to buy skills (and it's a good idea to buy lots of skills), remove a battle axe.

* 2 miners
* 1 mason/mechanic
* 1 carpenter/woodcutter
* 1 grower/brewer/cook. He's responsible for making prepared meals and drinks.
* either a herbalist/grower, or a fisherdwarf, or a hunter. The first gets you lots of brewable plants on maps with plants, the second gets you food and bones on maps with water (in maps with dangerous fish such as [[carp]] fishing is suicidal so be carefull), and the third gets you meat and bones on maps with animals. Herbalism is usually the safest of the three.
* 1 spare dwarf. You might make him the leader and broker; if so, give him at least novice [[appraiser]] skill so you know what stuff is worth. You might make him responsible for making trade goods, or turn him into your first soldier, or you might just give him some skills you want to experiment with.

==== Items ====
You want picks, food, and drink. Everything else is optional. The suggestions below assume you spent the maximum possible on skills. We'll pack lots just to be safe.

* 2 [[pick]]s - 1 per miner
* 1 [[battle axe]] - so you can chop wood
* 1 [[Anvil]] - so you can make weapons, trade crafts, and such
* 20 units of drink: [[dwarven ale]], [[dwarven beer]], and [[dwarven rum]] are all good. [[dwarven wine]] you'll get through brewing.
* 30 [[plump helmets]] - They're good to eat and produce 5 units of booze for each one brewed at a [[still]].
* 5 turtles - they get you bones and shells
* 20 [[plump helmet]] spawn - for planting.
* 2 dogs - to guard against thieves and help kill intruders.
* (optional) other kinds of seeds and rock nuts
* (optional) 1 of many different kinds of meats for extra barrels
* (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

If the map is treeless, remove the battle axe and spend the freed points on more plump helmets and logs (you're going to run out however many you bring...).

If you're willing to wait a year or two to do any metalworking and you're sure traders will come, remove the anvil and spend the freed points on such things as skills, food and drink, wood, leather, or weapons.

=== '''Rapid Expansion''' ===
A plan for quick growth followed up by heavy immigration works well both as an early game strategy and as an assist for a late game foundation. Starting off with the anvil is also much less troublesome if you drop both battleaxes and make your own picks too. Don't worry though, you'll be digging out cavernous villas in no time, and cheaply too, with this build. Food and stone will be in abundance and you'll have excellent worker time utilization. And due to the early metalworking and spreaded skills your dwarves have, soon you'll have powerful steel-armored warrior workers that'll form the bedrock of a city guard.

Always build a Woodburning Furance, Smelter and Metalsmith shop first, and take apart that wagon for extra logs. Either burn those logs into charcoal, or smelt coal into fuel, and then make your tools.

==== Dwarves & skills ====
By dropping both picks and axes you'll be able to afford a lot of useful skills, and you'll be able to get a metalsmithing shop running within the first seconds of your game, so no precious time is lost. Your Dwarves are divided largely into two groups, your laborers (Butcher, Baker and candle--er, Brewer) and your craftsdwarves. Essentially a Bluecollar/Whitecollar divide to set up a nice class war later. Also, by having such wide assortments of skills, your dwarves will get lots of attribute bonuses and become extremely capable fighters by the time you need to worry about that.

Laborers are given mining and growing skills with some extra to cover food production. The Ranger is the oddball, but will spend his early days gathering plants and hauling items, so fits here. Your first order of business with them is to dig that top later out quickly and get some farms started and fully stocked. Then, as they grow, you can go back to digging out the rest of the base.

* The Baker: +5 Mining, +3 Cooking, +2 Growing.
* The Brewer: +5 Mining, +3 Brewing, +2 Growing.
* The Butcher: +5 Mining, +1 Butchering, +1 Leatherworking, +1 Tanning, +2 Growing. Make some bags for sand and the Quarry Bushes and a butcher's shop before the Ranger starts his hunts.

* The Ranger: +3 Woodcutter, +3 Carpenter, +2 Axedwarf, +1 Herbalist, +1 Ambusher. Be sure to assign a war dog or two to this guy, since he's the only one who needs to go outside. Once he gets an axe, he'll also be a competant fighter and hunter and will start with armor due to +1 ambusher.

Craftsdwarves focus on running shops, building trade goods, and making the outpost as profitable as possible in the first year, to attract additional immigrants that can be thrown into the mines or toil in the mushroom fields. They should have very broad skill bases, but the actual choice of leader is up to you.

* The Smithy: +1 Metalsmith, Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Furnace Operator, Wood Burner, Stone Crafting, Bone Carving. This guy will cover all of your rarely needed creation skills, and make your picks and axes. After this he usually ends up making scads of stone crafts for sale. Glassworking, gem cutting, and potash making are good as well, and even with novice in all areas you'll build fast enough for these rare items.
* The Foreman: +3 Building Design, +3 Mechanic, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper. Building design and mechanical work is extremely quick work, so instead give him nobleman skills to spend the rest of his workhours on. These are extremely useful in the long-term.
* The Freemason: +5 Masonry. It seems a bit silly to give him just one primary skill, but Masons are usually working 24 hours a day on all variety of stone doors, chairs and tables.

There's a variation if you want a more 'compact' design of those last two:

* The Construction Worker: +5 Masonry, +3 Mechanic, +2 Building Design.
* The Lazy Boss: +3 Fishing, +3 Fish Cleaning, +1 Judge of Intent, Appraiser, Organizer, Record Keeper.

This is not as useful or safe, as Fishing is a time-intensive skill, so it takes him away from his recordkeeping job for extended periods and a Carp might kill him. It also forces your Mason to get behind on Queues every time someone needs a trap build or a workshop set up. Halting book-keeping doesn't slow down any production, so the original stat-spread can work out better.

==== Items ====
The only thing you need is your anvil, a few stones and bars of metal, everything else is optional. A point of contention is the Iron Axe you'll be making, as some may prefer it to be steel. Steel Bars cost 150, which is three times the cost of iron, and only provide a small damage bonus and no chopping speed bonus. If you start in an area with [[Limestone]] or [[Chalk]] you'll soon be able to smelt Steel with your functioning metalsmith shop anyway. If you're on a map without trees, well, I suppose you don't need the axe at all. But in that case you'd be better off taking the picks, dropping the anvil, and buying a few hundred logs.

* 1 [[Anvil]] - this is what makes it all possible, and helps you get started faster.
* 3 [[Copper Bars]] - these cost 10 each, and will be your picks. Three for the price of one, literally.
* 1 [[Iron Bar]] - this costs 50, and will be your axe. The 40 extra is worth it for the damage increase you get over copper or bronze.
* 2 [[Bituminous Coal]] or [[Logs]] - you can smelt two coal into 4 fuel for the cost of 2 logs. Inexpesive at 3 each, one can afford to bring more.
* 4 cheap stone - any sort works, such as inexpensive [[granite]]. You'll use these to make your first three buildings.

That's what you need to get started, but this is a guide for the items on your list. This build does not require or recommend bringing plump helmets due to their cost. Instead, encourage your dwarves to eat the turtles and meat out of the barrels and cook wine biscuts. Your farms will be running amazingly quickly anyway, and for half the cost of a single helmet you can make feed several dwarves on baked beer. You'll get enough seeds from brewing the shrooms soon enough.

* 26 of [[Wine]], [[Rum]], [[Beer]] and [[Ale]]
* 36 of [[Rock Nuts]], [[Plump Helmet Spawn]] and [[Pig Tail Seeds]]
* 11 [[Turtles]] - these hilarious little dudes are way better than the monkeymeat you usually set out with, what with all the bones they leave. I use these as 'before farming' rations and build up a good supply of bone bolts. Shells are also valuable to have around.
* 1 of each other 2 cost meat, for extra empty barrels.
* 2 [[Dogs]] - preferably war dogs or hunting dogs. Assign these to your Ranger. Bring a pair so you can make more dogs.
* 1 [[Horse]] - they're relatively inexpensive and will help you begin breeding horses faster, as you are nearly always getting a horse with your wagon. Livestock are a valuable commodity for meat and bones, and you want as many of these as possible 'emergency rations' on hand.
* 4 [[Leather]] - you need leather bags to process [[quarry bushes]] and to gather sand for glass. Four will be enough, and you can get it for only 20.

If you do it exactly as written, you will end up with a few points left over. Grab some extra food or upgrade one of your copper bars to an actual copper pick, if you want a faster start. These foodstuffs will last a very long time if managed properly, so get your farms going and start preparing for next year now.

=== Metalbashing/Glassworking ===
Heavy metalbashing and glassworking requires a site with 1) abundant fuel and 2) raw materials. Magma is ideal but large coal seams or a forest will also suffice. A site with either limestone or chalk means nearly unlimited steel. Any site with "sand" (not "loamy sand" or the like) will permit glassworking. Failing these, any place with lots of rock, trees, and preferably sand will work fine. Your biggest choice when setting up is whether to optimize for a fast start or long-term success.

==== Dwarves & skills ====
Unless you're trying a low-skills challenge, each dwarf should get the maximum possible number (currently 10) of skill boosts; remove a battle axe to free up needed points. Individual preferences can be mighty handy; if you have a dwarf who likes steel, clear glass, crossbows, siege engine parts, or something else equally interesting, he's an ideal candidate for matching skills.

* A carpenter/leader: Points into Carpenter, Wood Cutter, and a bunch of nobles' skills, including at least novice Negotiator and Appraiser. This dwarf should have good inter-personal thoughts/preferences.
* A Mason/Mechanic: Points into Mason, Building Designer, and Mechanic. Adding more points to Mason gets construction materials and furniture faster. More points to Mechanic allows faster trap-setting. Adding Appraiser and/or Negotiator skills gives you a back-up leader or broker. A boost to Wrestling gets you better on-call defense.
* A Farmer/Herbalist (assumes the site has at least some plants): This dwarf will gather the plant material you need to brew drinks. Points into Grower and Herbalist. Leftover skill raises should be invested in a valuable, hard to raise trade skill such as Metalsmith, Metal Crafter, or perhaps Glassworking.
* A Farmer/Brewer/Cook: This dwarf is responsible for keeping your community fed and liquored up. Points into Grower, Brewer, and (optionally) Cook. Leftover skill raises should be invested as for the Farmer/Herbalist.
* A Metalbasher: Points into whatever hard-to-raise skills you most want. Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Bowyer, Glassworker, and even Siege Engineer can all be good choices depending on your setup. Remember to spend a few points on Furnace Operator and perhaps also Wood Burning.
* 2 Miners/Soldiers: Points into both mining and military skills. The miners first get legendary and then become extremely powerful fighters. Remember that it's much easier to increase Mining skill than most of the military skills (especially Armor User), but also that you'll want capable miners immediately.

With this setup, you have several ways to make the trade goods you'll need to buy what you lack. Metal goblets, stone mugs, handwear, footwear, mechanisms, bone or wood crossbows, prepared meals, or bone and shell crafts are all solid choices.

==== Items (all starts) ====
* 2 [[pick]]s
* 6 or 11 of each of [[dwarven ale]], [[dwarven beer]], and [[dwarven rum]]. With abundant brewable plants and lots of wood you don't actually need any starting booze, but it's nice to have a backup.
* at least 11 [[plump helmet]]s. Bring a lot more if you anticipate problems with gathering brewable plants.
* at least 6 [[turtle]]s. Not only are they good eating, they ensure you have the [[shell]]s and [[bone]]s needed to satisfy [[strange mood]]s.
* 1 of every kind of meat that costs 2 or 4, as each type of meat will be packed in its own free barrel and cooking the meat will release that barrel for use. If you don't like this feature, bring more turtles or plump helmets instead.
* Unless the map is glacial, or you intend only outdoor agriculture, bring plenty of seeds as well. A minimum of 15 plump helmet spawn are essential for a quick start to underground agriculture; rock nuts, sweet pod seeds, pig tail seeds, and cave wheat seeds will diversify your meals and drinks and let you set up for clothes-making. Seeds are packed in bags.
* (optional) some cheap (5 point) leather to make quivers and bags and such

===== Items (fast start) =====
* 1 [[Anvil]]
* no [[battle axe]] ... as long as you're confident the site has either iron or copper.
* only a few logs (just enough to get started with), unless the map has no trees

===== Items (moderate start) =====
* no [[Anvil]]
* 1 [[battle axe]] (at present, steel is the only option)
* few or no logs, unless the map has no trees
* with the points you save by not bringing an anvil, buy logs and metal cages. Each cage can be melted into one metal bar, which is an easy way to ensure stocks of metals you expect your site to lack. That missing anvil will slow you down until you get one in trade (which normally takes about 6 or 7 seasons) and might even cost you a failed [[strange mood]], but it means 50 extra metal bars or enough logs to make beds and barrels for all.

===== Items (slow start) =====
* no [[Anvil]]
* no [[battle axe]]s
* lots of logs - at least 25 on a heavily forested map. You can survive without them, but it's a lot cheaper to buy logs to make barrels than to bring more drink.

===== Cheaper axes and/or picks, with a bit of work (and any other weapons you want) =====

Steel axes normally cost 300 points each. Instead of spending that much on them, you can make yourself iron or copper axes by bringing the resources needed instead, and having one dwarf make them for you. For comparison, you could bring 1 anvil and 2 steel axes for 1600 points. You could bring no anvil and 5 steel axes for 1500 points. Or, you could bring enough resources to make 18 iron axes for 1489 points, or 55 copper axes for 1498 points.

Replace the axes and anvil with:
* 1 [[Anvil]] (1000 points) (I'm only mentioning it here because you CANNOT do this without it, unless you're willing to not have axes until traders sell you an anvil)
* You need to bring three fire-safe stones in order to construct the necessary buildings. (9 points)
* 2 tower-cap logs (3 points each, total 6 points)
* N magnetite/limonite/hematite stones (for iron, 24 points each)
* For additional amounts of jewelry, bring 1 cassiterite and 1 copper ore, which combine to make 2 bronze bars. This is better than copper and takes no additional time. (6 points each)
* N-1 bituminous coal (3 points each)

To make your axes/picks/whatever: You'll want to build a wood burner, a smelter, and a metalsmith's forge. Burn both logs in the wood burner to get two charcoal. Smelt the coke in the smelter. Each will produce a net gain of 2 fuel (that is, coke/charcoal). Then smelt the magnetite/hematite/limonite, which will use one fuel per piece of ore. Finally you can make iron axes in the metalsmith's forge, using one iron bar and one fuel each. (See http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=001191 for more detail)

=== Free Equipment ===

Dwarves who start with the ambusher skill get some leather armor for free. Dwarves who start with only military skills get a weapon for free; for example, a dwarf with Ambusher, Marksdwarf, Armor Use, Shield Use, and Wrestler as initial skill choices will show up for your fortress wearing leather armor and carrying a crossbow and bolts. Dwarves with a mix of military and civilian skills can get the free armor from ambusher, but not the free weapons. Social skills count as civilian skills for this purpose.

{{Starting FAQ}}

== Challenge builds ==

If repeatedly defending a besieged fortress isn't difficult enough for you, here are a few challenges you can set for yourself. You might also want to check out the [[Game goals|List of goals]] for other ways to challenge yourself.

=== Hermit ===

* No [[skill]]s
* One [[pick]] and no other supplies

A well known and popular challenge. Kill off the 6 starting dwarves and any [[immigrants]] as they arrive, and try to make a living for the last dwarf.

=== Outcast ===

* No [[skill]]s
* One [[pick]] and no other supplies

Same as the hermit challenge, only with multiple hermits. Turn off immigrants or kill them.

=== Roughing it ===

* No picks

Don't [[dig]] or build at all. Bring no [[pick]]s, and don't ask for them in [[Trade depot|trade]]. Watch as the more "weather-averse" dwarves slowly go mad.

=== Gone to the dogs ===

* One [[pick]]
* A ton of [[animals]]

Replace the starting equipment with an equal value in [[dog]]s or [[cat]]s.

=== ASPCA ===

* No [[animals]]

Don't bring any [[animals|pets]]. Furthermore, due to the possibility of animals being caught in them, don't build any [[traps]], either. If [[immigrants]] bring pets, get rid of them somehow. (If you're a particularly rabid ASPCA member, you could get rid of the pet-bearing immigrants, too, but that's probably excessive.)

=== 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.

=== Luddite ===

* No mechanics or [[mechanism]]s
* No [[machine]]s

[[Traps]] and moving [[bridge]]s are forbidden, [[farming]] must be accomplished by hand.

=== City-States ===

* No [[skill]]s
* 7 or multiple of 7 of everything you bring

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!

===Wooden Town===
Start on any treeless map and make everything that can out of wood. Stone may only be used for crafts to trade and things which cannot be made from wood e.g. mechanisms. Metal can be smelted into bars but these bars must be traded away with no further refinement. This will mean your only defense will be [[marksdwarf|marksdwarves]] with wooden bolts or traps Alternatively start on a map with an [[aquifer]] and do not tunnel beneath it but build all buildings from stone.

=== Dwarves on a Diet ===

==== Fishing Village ====

Give your dwarves only the fishing skill and other fishing related skills (like bonecrafting.) Try to survive off a [[fish]] only diet. Flood the river and build houses above it so the dwarves can fish through their floors. There will be an extra challenge if the river freezes in the winter.

==== Carnivore ====

* No plants or seeds

Only eat strays, pets, and animals you trap and hunt. No farming or plant gathering. Keep all your pets in cages and care for them as little as possible. Eat your dwarves' pets first for an extra challenge. If this upsets your dwarves, ridicule or ignore them. (If you are particularly heartless, you could cage those dwarves as well because anyone that empathizes with animals doesn't deserve any rights either.)

==== Vegetarian or vegan ====

* No meat or fish
* Vegans - no cheese, leather, silk, or shell

A fairly easy challenge. Take no meat and buy no meat. Butcher no animals. Gut no fish. To make your dwarves vegan, use no animal products like the [[Elf|elves]].

==== IOGT / AA ====

* No alcohol

Quite possibly, this is the cruelest challenge that your dwarves can be given. Don't ever brew any alcohol. Build [[well]]s instead and watch your now teetotaller dwarves work slower and slower by the season.

=== Hunting Party ===

* One marksman/ambusher
* Two camp servants (e.g. one cook/brewer/herbalist, one butcher/tanner/leatherworker/woodcutter)
* Four clients, all dabbling in marksman/ambusher but with primarily civilian skills.

No anvil, lots of hunting dogs ... and a haunted wood. (In a terrifying wood, you may find all the trees & plants are dead, severely reducing long-term prospects.)

=== Immigration and Customs Enforcement ===

* One miner/mason/architect
* One woodcutter/carpenter/architect
* Five military dwarves

No anvil, lots of food, in a canyon - spend the first year building fortifications to interdict traffic. Immigrants can build a town around you, but your original dwarves remain dedicated to their mission.

=== Dwarf Siege ===

Start in the middle of a goblin fortress. See how long you can survive, and how many goblins you can kill.

=== Dwarfsicles ===

Select a map region in the northern extremities (or another very cold area), where water is frozen for much or all of the year. All construction that can be undertaken with stone must use [[ice]], instead. Be sure to bring plenty of [[Plump helmet|Plump Helmets]] for brewing drinks!

For an insane challenge, forbid yourself from digging in any material that can yield resources other than ice.

=== Add your challenges! ===

Challenges are fun! Add some!

40d Talk:Farming

2007-11-29T13:54:40Z

Kidinnu: More support for the flowchart

== Farming in Winter ==

It appears that farm plots now have a menu for farming in the winter. Has anyone done this yet? --[[User:Karlito|Karlito]] 00:42, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

:Sounds like winter farming works fine. It's probably part of the general streamlining of temperature and whatnot (why would a tropical winter be worse than a glacial summer, underground?) --Doomclown

::Spider Webs do not seem to depend on being near the water or farms now. Most I have seen appeared in a narrow valley on the outside of the mountain. --Silveron

:::Winter farming is working fine, I've farmed Plump helmets whole winter. No starved dwarves for me! --[[User:UltimaPhantom|UltimaPhantom]] 15:25, 8 November 2007 (EST)

== Farming aboveground issue ==

You're allowed to build aboveground farm plots on areas where you can't actually plant seeds, but it doesn't tell you this. Basically you have to make sure farm plots outdoors are built on biomes that have at least some vegetation (shrubs, grass doesn't count) in order for your dwarves to actually plant the seeds you set. Trying to farm on a mountain biome or any other that is listed with "Other Vegetation: None" will end up with the plot just being ignored. And there are now often multiple biomes in any given fortress map, as seen on the site selection menu when you start a fort. --[[User:BahamutZERO|BahamutZERO]] 21:23, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

:Farming in the winter is handy now, but does any one know what it means when the plant type in the farm (when you pick out what your going to grow) is red? It won't let me grow it! --Comment by [[User:Rock n Rat|Rock n Rat]] and copy-edited by [[User:Savok|Savok]] due to its high level of unreadability

::When the name is red, that means that, for whatever reason, that crop cannot be planted at that time. --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 20:53, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

::This is most likely because it is late winter, and any seeds planted at that point won't have time to grow by the end of the year. It doesn't take into account the fact that the crops may still be growable in the spring as it does with the other seasons; something about the new year throws it off. --[[User:Hesitris|Hesitris]] 10:06, 18 November 2007 (EST)

== Mixed Plots ==

The following paragraph contradicts itself a couple times, which is the correct behavior? <blockquote>
The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.</blockquote>[[User:Amstrad|Amstrad]] 17:07, 10 November 2007 (EST)
:I think what it means is that the planter will plant until he reaches a tile incapable of growing, the stop completely. Let's say you have a 1x8 plot, and tile 3 is not capable of growing the crop. Tiles 1 and 2 will be planted, but the farmer will stop at 3. He will not skip over it and continue planting tiles 4-8. It is not contradictory, but should be reworded. --[[User:Valdemar|Valdemar]] 13:48, 18 November 2007 (EST)
:What the writer mean by "mixed plot" is if you build a plot underground and open the roof in some place. The area(s) where you don't have roofing anymore will be considered as above ground, and the rest will still be considered by the game to be underground. --[[User:Eagle of Fire|Eagle of Fire]] 18:09, 18 November 2007 (EST)

== Food Hauling caveat ==

It was suggested that stone and wood hauling be turned off during planting season to prevent starvation. It seems more prudent to me that in case of eminent starvation to turn off FOOD HAULING so all the hungry dwarves can swarm the previously tasked foods. Then turn it back on and let them continue taking their time getting it to where it needs to be. Is this a bad idea? ~~

== Flowchart ==

That's got to be the most complicated possible way to present that information, which is already covered in a much clearer table on the [[crops]] page. It would also be horribly intimidating to the newbies. No offense to whoever took the time to make this monstrosity, but I think it should be axed, or at the least moved to the more relevant crops page. [[User:Mzbundifund|Mzbundifund]] 23:25, 28 November 2007 (CST)

:You say it like Dwarf Fortress itself is not horribly intimidating. No offense taken, but, then again, farming is one of the most complicated aspects of the game and I spent quite some time trying to wrap my mind around it's quirks.
:I made this illustration to help me plan workshops chaining, optimize hauling and quickly evaluate gathered shrubs. Tabular data on the [[Crops]] page serves great as a reference, but not so much as an aid in designing processes. Besides, some people like me comprehend such visual form of information easier.
:This diagram is already linked on [[Crops]] page, and if people deem that image describing in detail farming workflow doesn't belong to [[Farming]] page, so be it. [[User:Nophotoavailable|Nophotoavailable]] 02:49, 29 November 2007 (EST)
:It's seems a great flowchart to me, especially the way it's linked in the corner so it doesn't dominate the page. Well done for creating it. [[User:Djp|Djp]] 05:46, 29 November 2007 (EST)
:: I appreciate the flowchart, and find it more useful for contemplating the system-as-a-whole than the table on Crops. Table's good for detail, bad for seeing relationships & alternatives, like "What are all the crops that I can use to make fabric?". [[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 08:54, 29 November 2007 (EST)

40d Talk:Starting location

2007-11-28T14:25:20Z

Kidinnu: Apparent small error in illustration

Trees do not only grow on the lowest Z-Level. I have trees growing on multiple Z-Levels. --[[User:Tracker|Tracker]] 02:46, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Hmm. Maybe only up to a certain height? My first map--while initially pretty decent (sand, water, trees, rock, variety of minerals) had trees only in the most lower left hand corner (one screen's worth), which also happened to be the lowest surface level I had. But you are right, my current fort (nice entrance, there was a pocket by a river tributary that I turned into my entrance gateway, but no sand) has trees on two levels, the lowest surface, and the second lowest. Still, it's something to be aware of.
--[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] 03:26, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Absolutely - that's why I changed it to say "lower" instead of lowest. --[[User:Tracker|Tracker]] 03:35, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

So I noticed. :)
--[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] 03:26, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

== Towns ==

Any benefit of building in towns? Other than mining under the elves and dropping them into pits? --[[User:Ikkonoishi|Ikkonoishi]] 19:35, 3 November 2007 (EDT)
:Yes there is. Humans are more than happy to share their stuff with you, and won't be at all upset if you rob them blind it seems. --[[User:Ikkonoishi|Ikkonoishi]] 22:11, 3 November 2007 (EDT)
::Think this'll ever get changed? Seems kind of unrealistic to me...--[[User:Tarsier|Tarsier]] 19:56, 5 November 2007 (EST)

== Mountain tiles guarentee certain features. ==

As per my addition, for each mountain square in the 2nd zoom view, you're guaranteed pits, a chasm, and an underground river. I have confirmed this myself using the reveal tool, and Today has confirmed at least part of it: http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=001176 - [[User:Kjoery|Kjoery]] 16:49, 6 November 2007 (EST)

== Towns Revert ==

Any reason why that edit was unacceptable to you Savok? I'm not going to revert, but I would like an explanation. --[[User:Ikkonoishi|Ikkonoishi]] 12:06, 12 November 2007 (EST)

== Errors in PNG? ==

Contrary to the text in the attached PNG, I've had fortresses with pockets of sand sufficient for glassworking even when sand doesn't show up in the embark screen. [[User:Kidinnu|Kidinnu]] 09:25, 28 November 2007 (EST)

40d:Eerie glowing pit

2007-11-26T20:12:23Z

Kidinnu: Added (to spoiler space) a way to determine early whether you have HIDDEN FUN STUFF

''This page is about the mountain feature. You may be looking for the [[Activity_zone#Pit.2FPond|pit/pond designation]] for activity zones.''

A '''glowing pit''' is an small impassable chasm, usually found near or within [[adamantine]] deposits deep in the earth. There is one glowing pit per mountain ''[[region]]'', so finding it is a crapshoot without [[cheating]]. They are sometimes surrounded by mysterious rooms. These are very dangerous regions that can cause the destruction of even a well prepared fortress.

{{spoiler}}

Because pre-existing architecture shows up as an asset of your outpost, you can check the 'z' screen as soon as you strike the earth; demon pits will show up as typically $4000.

If you dig deep enough in the right place, perhaps following that vein of glorious [[adamantine]], you might break into a peculiar chamber with strange glowing pits at the bottom.

[[Image:000008 - Peculiar chamber.png]]

Usually, there will be chained and caged [[humanoid]]s, body parts, upright spears and pikes, ash and charcoal, and horrifying engravings in this room. '''These are a warning.''' If you do not take drastic measures such as rewalling the chamber to seal it, the glowing pits will unleash a horde of [[demon]]s upon your fortress.

The pits contain a very small amount of [[magma]], usually only enough for a handful of [[smelter]]s or [[forge]]s, but sometimes enough small deposits for a good-sized industry. This is fortunate, since magma is a requirement for adamantine refining.

Of course, you'll have to deal with the demons first...

[[Image:000009 - Elf bone meal.png]]

{{World}}
[[Category:World]] [[Category:Spoilers]]

40d:Starting builds

2007-11-26T20:03:26Z

Kidinnu: Verified previous assertion - dwarf with 2 levels in Intimidation or Bowyer but all other skills military doesn't get starting weapons

40d:Ambusher

2007-11-26T00:49:45Z

Kidinnu: More details of armor received as a result of starting skill

{{Skill
| color = #070
| skill = Ambusher
| profession = Ranger
| tasks =
* Related with [[Hunting]]
}}
Dwarves assigned to hunt automatically use the '''ambusher''' skill while hunting outside of the fortress, allowing them to sneak silently upon their prey. Dwarves using the ambush skill move [[Speed|slower]], but cannot be seen by enemies.

As an ambusher gets closer to his prey, there is a greater and greater chance he will be spotted and stop ambushing. The ambusher's chances improve as her skill improves.

[[Immigration|Immigrating]] hunter dwarves start with this skill. They come equipped with a set of [[armor|mixed chain and leather armor]], a full stack of [[Bolts|metal bolts]], and a [[Crossbow|crossbow]]. Starting dwarves with this skill get free leather armor (and perhaps a steel cap if they're skilled or proficient).

In [[Adventure Mode|adventure mode]], ambusher is skilled up by {{key|S}}neaking and walking about. This will greatly reduce your [[speed]] just as it does in dwarf mode, but will cause hostile creatures not to attack you. Until you un{{key|S}}neak or someone spots you, you will gain a small amount of experience in ambushing with every step. Presently, smashing a creature's skull in with your bare hands does not count as being spotted, so the best way to tell if you're still sneaking is to check your speed in the bottom right of the screen. A peculiarity of {{key|S}}neaking is that you are (almost ?) always spotted whenever you are standing next to a creature, even if that creature is unconscious or has both eyes ripped out, and never spotted in any other case.

[[Category:Jobs]]

40d:Economics

2007-11-21T21:00:32Z

Kidinnu: Tightened two or three sentences, removed (again) incorrect/out-of-place assertion about building designer skill.

= Overall Economic Flowchart =

Each process on the economic flowchart has the following components:
* Inputs (on left) - the process will use up these raw materials.
* Means/Job - either a [[building]] where the process is assigned, or (if in italics) a tool which the worker must have to carry out the process. Following the slash is a job title - this job must be enabled on a dwarf or that dwarf will not participate in that level of the economic path. Following the building is a list of skills and/or raw materials needed to make that building, or a reference to the job that can produce the good needed to do the job.
* Outputs (on right) - These are the goods that are produced by the economic activity in question.

Note: an article is desperately needed to cover the concept of happy thoughts.

== Raw Materials ==

assign these jobs through the designate or zone options.

[[Walls]] -> [[Pick]]/[[Mining]] -> [[Stone]], some of which is also [[Ore]] or [[Flux]] or [[Gems]] or [[Coal]] or [[Lignite]]
:(designate -> Mine)

[[Chop down trees|Trees]] -> [[Battle axe]]/[[Wood Cutter]] -> [[Wood]]
:(designate -> Chop Trees)

[[Walls]] -> none/[[Engraving|Stone Detailing]] -> [[Rooms#Room_grades|Room Quality]]
:(designate -> Smooth Stone) and (designate -> Engrave Stone)
: The reason you do this is to give your dwarves happy thoughts, which has a (poorly understood?) beneficial effect.

[[Water]] -> none/[[Fishing]] -> Raw [[Fish]]
:(designate -> Fish, do this at the level above the water)

[[Animals]] -> [[Weapon]]/[[Ambusher|Hunting]] -> [[Corpse|Corpses]]
:(assign any dwarf the hunt job)

[[Bush|Bushes]] -> none/[[Gather Plants]] -> [[Crops]]
:(designate -> Gather Plants)

[[Crops]] -> [[Food#Eating|Eating]] -> [[Seeds]]

[[Seed]] -> [[Farm plot]]/[[Farming|Farming(fields)]] -> [[Crops]]
:(note that the Farm Plot while it is a building is not a workshop)

== Second Tier Materials ==
(only raw materials needed as input)

Raw [[Fish]] -> [[Fishery]]/[[Fish Cleaning]] -> [[Fish]]

[[Corpse]] -> [[Butcher's Shop]]/[[Butchery]] -> [[Meat]] (which is [[Food]]), [[Fat]], [[Skin]], [[Bones]], [[Skulls]]

[[Stone]] -> [[Mason's workshop]]/[[construction|Masonry]] -> [[Furniture]], [[Blocks]]

[[Stone]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Craft#Crafts|Stonecrafting]] -> [[Craft]], [[Weapon|Short Sword]]

[[Stone]] -> [[Mechanic's workshop]]/[[Mechanics]] -> [[Mechanism]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Carpenter's workshop]]/[[construction|Carpentry]] -> [[Furniture]], [[Blocks]], [[Container|Barrels]], [[Container|Bins]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Craft#Crafts|Woodcrafting]] -> [[Craft]], [[Bolts]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Carpenter's workshop]]/[[Skills|Trapping]] -> [[Animal Trap]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Bowyer's workshop]]/[[Bowyer]] -> [[Crossbow|Wooden Crossbow]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Wood furnace]]/[[Wood burning]] -> [[Charcoal]], which is [[Fuel]]

[[Wood]] -> [[Wood furnace]]/[[Wood burning]] -> [[Ash]]
:(note - the Wood Furnace is a Furnace, not a workshop)

== Higher Tier Materials ==
=== Animal Based ===
some [[Fish]] -> [[Food#Eating|Eating]] -> [[Shell]] and/or [[Bone]]

Wild [[Animals]], [[Animal Trap]] -> none/[[Trapping]] -> Captured [[Animals]]

Captured [[Animals]] -> [[Kennels]]/[[Animal Training]] -> Tame [[Animals]]

Tame [[Animals]] -> [[Kennels]]/[[Animal Training]] -> Trained [[Animals]]
:(note that the Kennels while it is a building is not a workshop)
:(also animal training only works for Dogs right now)

Tame [[Animal]] -> [[Butcher's Shop]]/[[Butchery]] -> [[Corpse]]
: ({{K|Z}}-Animals-Ready for Slaughter)
: Really?
: I thought it was U->Select the Animal Unit->Set "Ready for Slaughter" to (Y).

[[Fat]] -> [[Cooking]]?/[[Kitchen]] -> [[Tallow]]

[[Tallow]], [[Lye]] -> [[Soaper]]/[[Alchemist's laboratory]] -> [[Soap]]
: The documentation on other wiki pages is inconsistent on this one but Soap doesn't do anything yet, so it's not critical.

[[Skin]] -> [[Tannery|Tanning]]/[[Tannery]] -> [[Leather]]

[[Leather]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Leatherworking]] -> [[Armor]], [[Bags]]

[[Bone]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Craft#Crafts|Bonecarving]] -> [[Craft]], [[Bolts]], [[Armor]], [[Decoration]]

[[Shell]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Craft#Crafts|Bonecarving]] -> [[Craft]], [[Decoration]]

[[Skull]] -> [[Craftsdwarf's workshop]]/[[Craft#Crafts|Bonecarving]] -> [[Totem]]

: What are totems for? Can't find any info on the wiki.

=== Metal ===
: note - the various "Magma" variants all require [[Magma]], and use less [[Fuel]] - no Fuel at all if you don't make steel.
: The reaction table for which Ores make which metals and/or alloys is complex and beyond the scope of this article. see [[Ore]] for details.
: Metals can be used to make different sorts of things, see the article for a given product to see which metals are suitable.

[[Ore]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Metal|Metal Bars]]

[[Ore]] x 2 + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> Various [[Alloy]]
: Does this take extra units of fuel? It looks to me like it doesn't.

[[Ore]] -> [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Metal Bars]]

[[Ore]] x 2 -> [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> Various [[Alloy]]

[[Coal]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Coke]] x 3, which is [[Fuel]]

[[Coal]] -> [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Coke]] x 3, which is [[Fuel]]

[[Lignite]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Coke]] x2, which is [[Fuel]]

[[Lignite]] -> [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Coke]] x2, which is [[Fuel]]

[[Iron Bars]] + [[Flux]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]] or [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Pig Iron]]

[[Pig Iron]] + [[Iron Bars]] + [[Flux]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]] or [[Magma Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Steel Bars]] x 2

: note - this means, to stay in steady operation, smelt iron ore twice, then pig iron once, then steel bars once. The four operations togethether produce 2 steel. Magma halves the fuel cost but does not eliminate it.

[[Metal|Metal Bars]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Smelter]]/[[Smelting]] -> [[Alloy]]

: it's generally a better idea to make the alloy directly from ore, I believe.

[[Metal|Metal Bars]] + [[Fuel]] -> [[Metalsmith's Forge]]/[[Metal crafting]] or [[Blacksmithing]] -> [[Metal Item]]
: This obviously needs to be fleshed out.

[[Metal]], [[Fuel]] -> [[Metalsmith's Forge]]/[[Armorsmith]] -> [[Armor]]

[[Metal]], [[Fuel]] -> [[Metalsmith's Forge]]/[[Weaponsmith]] -> [[Weapon]]

=== Misc ===

Empty [[Bags]] -> [[Glass Furnace]] / [[Item Hauling]]?!?! -> [[Sand]]
: You need to assign the collect sand job to a glass furance, AND
: use Zones -> Collect Sand
: FWIW I can

[[Sand]] -> [[Glass Furnace]] / [[Glassworking]] -> [[Furniture]] ...?
: It is presently impossible to make glass weapons because those require glass bars, which you cannot make.

[[Vermin]], [[Traps]] -> [[Kennels]] or [[Butcher's shop]]/[[Trapper]] ->

[[Barrel]], [[Crops]] -> [[Still]]/[[Brewing]] -> [[Alcohol]], [[Seed|Seeds]]

[[Crops]] and/or [[Meat]] and/or [[Alcohol]] and/or [[Fish]] -> [[Kitchen]]/[[Cooking]] -> [[Food#Prepared_food|Prepared Meals]]
: IMPORTANT NOTE - Cooked Crops do *not* produce seeds, so it is generally a bad idea to cook crops unless you have plenty (Z->Kitchen to disable cooking of crops).
: Once you have excess seeds, you can cook half of your crops and still have enough seeds to replace them.

[[Crops]] -> [[Farmer's workshop]]/[[Threshing]] -> [[Thread]] + [[Seeds]] x 2
: (Verify that this produces seeds)

[[Thread]] -> [[Loom]]/[[Weaving]] -> [[Cloth]]

[[Cloth]] -> [[Clothier's shop]]/[[Clothesmaking]] -> [[Clothing]]

= Economic Management =
== Stockpiles ==
: Due to the way the interface works, the key to maintaining flowthrough in your workshops is to have properly positioned and well-maintained stockpiles.

: [[Clutter]] has a *huge* impact on your productivity, so minimizing the dwarf-labor required to clear finished goods out of your workshops is key to maintaining their productivity.

: It is also important, especially in a mature fortress with a division of labor, to have goods close at hand so that your legendary dwarves don't have to walk all over the fortress to get what they need.

: The best way to achieve this is to locate small stockpiles (about 3x3 works best) near the workshop to hold the raw materials needed. By keeping the stockpiles small, you don't have to worry about every hauler in the fortress dropping what they're doing and spending an entire month filling a large stockpile with marble; but if you make them too small, you risk not having enough when the legendary furnace operator gets to work!

: Specific guidelines follow.

=== Stone ===
: Stone is so abundant that you almost never need large stone stockpiles. If you want your stonecrafters or masons to use a choice variety of stone (such as obsidian), and have plenty of excess hauling labor, place a 3x3 or 4x4 stockpile near to the workshop, and restrict it to only a few high-value varieties of stone.
: Flux, Fuel and Ore are covered below.

=== Flux and Ore ===
: A handy flux stockpile is absolutely key to maintaining efficient throughput in making steel. Steel is very labor intensive to begin with and if your furnace operators have to go a long way to get materials, you're over and done.
: On the other hand, if you have any flux at all, it's probably marble and you probably have lots of it.
: So a large flux stockpile will divert all hauling labor into filling it up.
: Generally speaking, a 3x3 stockpile should be plenty, but keep it absolutely as close to your furnaces as possible.

: The same considerations apply with ore and furnace fuel, but larger stockpiles are generally less of a problem, because there aren't 800 units of ore to haul. A skilled furnace operator can smelt direct-use ores *very* quickly, so consider a large stockpile for ore once a high skill level is achieved.
: In general, a full time wood burner will produce more Charcoal and more ash than a set of magma furnaces (even making steel) will actually use, so you may want to allow the wood furnace to get cluttered and then shut it off; but you should still build a fuel stockpile.
: If you don't have magma you're going to burning fuel like crazy.

=== Lumber ===
: Lumber takes a long time to haul down from the surface, so lumber stockpiles should be quite a bit larger, as this can introduce a significant lag in refilling them, you'll want some cushion.
: There's also a big labor input issue - either it takes even longer to haul from the surface, or it takes your intermediary dwarf a long time to get the lumber.
: In general, I recommend placing your lumber stockpile near the surface, and placing the lumber using workshops or furnaces as nearby as possible.
: This means it may take a long time to haul your ashes or charcoal to your forges for use, but that hauling job can be handled by an Peasant, while the Wood Burner has to haul the logs into the furnace himself.

=== Finished Goods ===
: Firstly, life without bins is unlivable. If you have to make them out of metal, I suggest copper or lead. But few start locations are so wood deprived that one log is harder to come by than 3 metal bars.
: You'll want to make more bins than you can possibly make, so make as many as you can.
: Once you have bins, it becomes much easier to haul finished goods to your trade depot, since the dwarves haul the bin with them.
: However, goods have to be hauled one at a time from the workshop and then placed in bins. I'm hoping that this is a high priority for change, since it's a major pain in the arse, but there you are.
: So, your finished goods stockpile should be as close to your workshops as possible, and you should only haul items to the trade depot once they've been placed in bins.

=== Material Classifications ===
: This is to help you find stuff in the stock pages

: [[Fuel]] of every kind, as well as [[Ash]] and [[Potash]], are classified as Metal Bars for some mysterious reason.

[[category: Economy]]

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2007-11-21T20:38:46Z

Kidinnu: Add vent

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-21T20:01:10Z

Kidinnu: undo last edit

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Summer 1053
| 20 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 46 dwarves, stable. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - getting bridge set up is a bit annoying, and zombies keep shambling down from a sidecanyon. 13 trained marksdwarves, more than half full-time. Biggest annoyance is cleaning up spam of c. 800 singleton bolts that missed archery targets. Even 5x5 is lagging a bit annoyingly on the laptop. Need intermediate industries. Have glassworker/mechanic slowly going mad for want of unknown raw gem.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-21T19:57:41Z

Kidinnu:

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Summer 1053
| 20 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 46 dwarves, stable. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - getting bridge set up is a bit annoying, and zombies keep shambling down from a sidecanyon. 13 trained marksdwarves, more than half full-time. Biggest annoyance is cleaning up spam of c. 800 singleton bolts that missed archery targets. Even 5x5 is lagging a bit annoyingly on the laptop. Need intermediate industries. Have glassworker/mechanic slowly going mad for want of unknown raw gem.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 5
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
|
| (9,5) as the Throat of Spurts runs along the base of the mountains (4x4)
|
| 21 Nov
| Dig watercourse under mountain
|
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2007-11-21T13:35:46Z

Kidinnu: More scouting, with no luck finding the kind of waterfall I want to build behind

== 8998 ==

Ushul Num, The Realms of Wind

There's something wrong here: only two dwarven civilizations, and a huge expanse of haunted mountains stretching from the south pole northwestward, almost to the equator. The equatorial dwarves are hemmed in: to the south is a sea and generally inhospitable habitats; to the east a mountain range densely infested with goblins. The southeastern dwarves have great expansion prospects northwards, however, and the southern end of the next mountain range up has some impressive cliffs and chasms.

Only 5 rejects, all early; < 2 minutes on fast desktop, < 10 minutes on slow laptop.

===Major Volcanoes===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
! Nearby vents and other features
|-
| (0,4)
| calm scorching tropical shrubland; aquifer; 2s from brook
| ne on brook
|-
| (7,1)
| calm scorching tropical savanna; 11s from brook; loamy sand/rhyolite/obsidian/granite
| se next to goblin fortress; s in mountains near sandy savanna, 3s from brook; *w in wild tropical savanna 4s from brook, moderate cliffs, white sand/rhyolite/granite/diorite; nw 3s from brook, nearly flat; 2e 5s from brook; ssw far from brook; wnw far from brook
|-
| (7,1)
| mountains, 11s from brook, 10s from calm scorching tropical grassland
| ne in mountains near sandy wild savanna, 1s from brook, high cliffs; *ese along stream
|-
| (1,2)
| mirthful moist brdlf forest / wilderness savanna; aquifer; 6s to brook
|
|-
| (13,2)
| wild tropical savanna; aquifer; 2s from brook
| sw far from brook; 2sw, double aquifer, 5s from brook; wsw, no brook
|-
| *(0,4)
| warm temperate savanna/sinister mountain; 1s from brook; (silty clay loam)/andesite/gabbro/granite; basalt/phyllite/gabbro; high cliffs
| ne far from brook; likely waterfall ese
|-
|(1,4)
| tropical freshwater marsh/mountain; on brook; felsite/granite/diorite; red sand/gabbro/slate/diorite; medium cliffs (higher further east in conifer forest)
| s2sw on swamp/broadleaf forest boundar, far from brook, flat
|-
| (0,7)
| haunted mountains/rocky wasteland, extreme cliffs, 5s from brook
|
|-
| (3,7)
| inaccessibly remote
|
|-
| (14,8)
| temperate grassland island, aquifer
|
|-
| (14,11)
| untamed temperate shrubland; double aquifer, no brook, flat
| sw, ssw
|-
| (9,12)
| haunted conifer forest; aquifer; 3s from brook
| 3 4s from brook
|}

===Other Known Vents===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,3)
| adjacent to goblin fort at sw corner of mountain range
|-
| (8,9)
| in the bend of the Stump of Drinking (between haunted & mirthful mountains), right next to river mid-temperate wilderness grassland. sand, clay, rhyolite, phyllite, abbro, gneiss, gentle slopes
|}

===Interesting Sites===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,5) where Highamazed enters the Grimgorged
| two streams enter major river over extreme cliffs - river gorge is 13 layers deep. Doesn't have the aquifer problems of the upper Grimgorged (which barring those would have plenty of nice sites, including a vent next to river next to haunted lake). sandboxy site: joyous forest, untamed grasslands (?). named fish everywhere, but they're not supposed to be so nasty after 33b, right? large "sunken garden" open to the air 5 layers down between the two streams, full of magnetite deposits, with a small rock pillar upwards in the middle - lots of fun to carve away the 1-square wide access, put bridges there, and have that be the stairwell for your fortress. 8x8 area is way too slow, though; with a 4x4 can only choose 1 waterfall or the other, or just the sinkhole with no waterfalls. Nice small waterfall 1s ne fits in 4x4, but only 2 high.
|-
| (7,4) where Hollowweasel comes down from the mountains
| cliffs 2 high, but into pool surrounded by cliffs; not in an exposed cliff face. wild densely-shrubbed swamp but trees are really sparse. if there was fuel, there'd be lots of steel potential, but there isn't. leopards & gorillas. further downstream where the river turns south is a nice spot for a 4x5, more trees, but no obvious flux layer. Still further, just before the Hollowweasel spills into the lake (Hollow Blueness of Working), there's a confluence with 8-layer cliffs; magnetite, dense forests; there are supposed to be two layers of aquifer midway up the cliff, but you can cut a ramp down the cliffside without any trouble (except getting scared by carp/hippo if you do it along the riverside). Fortress starts with a fish-on-fish slaughter in the riverbottom...
|-
| (8,15) Jestwine heads into the mountain below its source
| extreme terrifying cliffs around a freezing riverbottom; another possible 3x5ish Night Watch site
|}

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2007-11-21T02:38:13Z

Kidinnu:

== 8998 ==

Ushul Num, The Realms of Wind

There's something wrong here: only two dwarven civilizations, and a huge expanse of haunted mountains stretching from the south pole northwestward, almost to the equator. The equatorial dwarves are hemmed in: to the south is a sea and generally inhospitable habitats; to the east a mountain range densely infested with goblins. The southeastern dwarves have great expansion prospects northwards, however, and the southern end of the next mountain range up has some impressive cliffs and chasms.

Only 5 rejects, all early; < 2 minutes on fast desktop, < 10 minutes on slow laptop.

===Major Volcanoes===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
! Nearby vents and other features
|-
| (0,4)
| calm scorching tropical shrubland; aquifer; 2s from brook
| ne on brook
|-
| (7,1)
| calm scorching tropical savanna; 11s from brook; loamy sand/rhyolite/obsidian/granite
| se next to goblin fortress; s in mountains near sandy savanna, 3s from brook; *w in wild tropical savanna 4s from brook, moderate cliffs, white sand/rhyolite/granite/diorite; nw 3s from brook, nearly flat; 2e 5s from brook; ssw far from brook; wnw far from brook
|-
| (7,1)
| mountains, 11s from brook, 10s from calm scorching tropical grassland
| ne in mountains near sandy wild savanna, 1s from brook, high cliffs; *ese along stream
|-
| (1,2)
| mirthful moist brdlf forest / wilderness savanna; aquifer; 6s to brook
|
|-
| (13,2)
| wild tropical savanna; aquifer; 2s from brook
| sw far from brook; 2sw, double aquifer, 5s from brook; wsw, no brook
|-
| *(0,4)
| warm temperate savanna/sinister mountain; 1s from brook; (silty clay loam)/andesite/gabbro/granite; basalt/phyllite/gabbro; high cliffs
| ne far from brook; likely waterfall ese
|-
|(1,4)
| tropical freshwater marsh/mountain; on brook; felsite/granite/diorite; red sand/gabbro/slate/diorite; medium cliffs (higher further east in conifer forest)
| s2sw on swamp/broadleaf forest boundar, far from brook, flat
|-
| (0,7)
| haunted mountains/rocky wasteland, extreme cliffs, 5s from brook
|
|-
| (3,7)
| inaccessibly remote
|
|-
| (14,8)
| temperate grassland island, aquifer
|
|-
| (14,11)
| untamed temperate shrubland; double aquifer, no brook, flat
| sw, ssw
|-
| (9,12)
| haunted conifer forest; aquifer; 3s from brook
| 3 4s from brook
|}

===Other Known Vents===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,3)
| adjacent to goblin fort at sw corner of mountain range
|}

===Interesting Site===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,5) where Highamazed enters the Grimgorged
| two streams enter major river over extreme cliffs - river gorge is 13 layers deep. Doesn't have the aquifer problems of the upper Grimgorged (which barring those would have plenty of nice sites, including a vent next to river next to haunted lake). sandboxy site: joyous forest, untamed grasslands (?). named fish everywhere, but they're not supposed to be so nasty after 33b, right? large "sunken garden" open to the air 5 layers down between the two streams, full of magnetite deposits, with a small rock pillar upwards in the middle - lots of fun to carve away the 1-square wide access, put bridges there, and have that be the stairwell for your fortress. 8x8 area is way too slow, though; with a 4x4 can only choose 1 waterfall or the other, or just the sinkhole with no waterfalls. Nice small waterfall 1s ne fits in 4x4, but only 2 high.
|-
| (7,4) where Hollowweasel comes down from the mountains
| cliffs 2 high, but into pool surrounded by cliffs; not in an exposed cliff face. wild densely-shrubbed swamp but trees are really sparse. if there was fuel, there'd be lots of steel potential, but there isn't. leopards & gorillas. further downstream where the river turns south is a nice spot for a 4x5, more trees, but no obvious flux layer. Still further, just before the Hollowweasel spills into the lake (Hollow Blueness of Working), there's a confluence with 8-layer cliffs; magnetite, dense forests; there are supposed to be two layers of aquifer midway up the cliff, but you can cut a ramp down the cliffside without any trouble (except getting scared by carp/hippo if you do it along the riverside). Fortress starts with a fish-on-fish slaughter in the riverbottom...
|}

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2007-11-21T02:00:10Z

Kidinnu: scouting waterfalls

== 8998 ==

Ushul Num, The Realms of Wind

There's something wrong here: only two dwarven civilizations, and a huge expanse of haunted mountains stretching from the south pole northwestward, almost to the equator. The equatorial dwarves are hemmed in: to the south is a sea and generally inhospitable habitats; to the east a mountain range densely infested with goblins. The southeastern dwarves have great expansion prospects northwards, however, and the southern end of the next mountain range up has some impressive cliffs and chasms.

Only 5 rejects, all early; < 2 minutes on fast desktop, < 10 minutes on slow laptop.

===Major Volcanoes===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
! Nearby vents and other features
|-
| (0,4)
| calm scorching tropical shrubland; aquifer; 2s from brook
| ne on brook
|-
| (7,1)
| calm scorching tropical savanna; 11s from brook; loamy sand/rhyolite/obsidian/granite
| se next to goblin fortress; s in mountains near sandy savanna, 3s from brook; *w in wild tropical savanna 4s from brook, moderate cliffs, white sand/rhyolite/granite/diorite; nw 3s from brook, nearly flat; 2e 5s from brook; ssw far from brook; wnw far from brook
|-
| (7,1)
| mountains, 11s from brook, 10s from calm scorching tropical grassland
| ne in mountains near sandy wild savanna, 1s from brook, high cliffs; *ese along stream
|-
| (1,2)
| mirthful moist brdlf forest / wilderness savanna; aquifer; 6s to brook
|
|-
| (13,2)
| wild tropical savanna; aquifer; 2s from brook
| sw far from brook; 2sw, double aquifer, 5s from brook; wsw, no brook
|-
| *(0,4)
| warm temperate savanna/sinister mountain; 1s from brook; (silty clay loam)/andesite/gabbro/granite; basalt/phyllite/gabbro; high cliffs
| ne far from brook; likely waterfall ese
|-
|(1,4)
| tropical freshwater marsh/mountain; on brook; felsite/granite/diorite; red sand/gabbro/slate/diorite; medium cliffs (higher further east in conifer forest)
| s2sw on swamp/broadleaf forest boundar, far from brook, flat
|-
| (0,7)
| haunted mountains/rocky wasteland, extreme cliffs, 5s from brook
|
|-
| (3,7)
| inaccessibly remote
|
|-
| (14,8)
| temperate grassland island, aquifer
|
|-
| (14,11)
| untamed temperate shrubland; double aquifer, no brook, flat
| sw, ssw
|-
| (9,12)
| haunted conifer forest; aquifer; 3s from brook
| 3 4s from brook
|}

===Other Known Vents===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,3)
| adjacent to goblin fort at sw corner of mountain range
|}

===Interesting Site===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Location
! Notes
|-
| (7,3) where Highamazed enters the Grimgorged
| two streams enter major river over extreme cliffs - river gorge is 13 layers deep. Doesn't have the aquifer problems of the upper Grimgorged (which barring those would have plenty of nice sites, including a vent next to river next to haunted lake). sandboxy site: joyous forest, untamed grasslands (?). named fish everywhere, but they're not supposed to be so nasty after 33b, right? large "sunken garden" open to the air 5 layers down between the two streams, full of magnetite deposits, with a small rock pillar upwards in the middle - lots of fun to carve away the 1-square wide access, put bridges there, and have that be the stairwell for your fortress. 8x8 area is way too slow, though; with a 4x4 can only choose 1 waterfall or the other, or just the sinkhole with no waterfalls. Nice small waterfall 1s ne fits in 4x4, but only 2 high.
|}

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-20T22:15:15Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-20T13:41:27Z

Kidinnu:

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 20 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 36 dwarves, stable - growing pains, in the process of converting bb into full-sized corridors & settlement. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - need to build up, moat, fortify, bridge, but quite promising/fun. 9 trained marksdwarves, 4 more practicing (when not hauling for caravans). Biggest annoyance is spam of c. 500 singleton bolts that missed archery targets. Even 5x5 is lagging a bit annoyingly on the laptop.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-20T13:37:18Z

Kidinnu:

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Summer 1052
| 20 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 36 dwarves, stable - growing pains, in the process of converting bb into full-sized corridors & settlement. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - need to build up, moat, fortify, bridge, but quite promising/fun. 9 trained marksdwarves, 4 more practicing (when not hauling for caravans). Biggest annoyance is spam of c. 500 singleton bolts that missed archery targets.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-20T01:50:03Z

Kidinnu: Today's fortress

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 2
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Dastotonol
| (1,5) east of the source of the Jade Pulley-Venom (5x5)
| Summer 1052
| 19 Nov
| Night watch - military expedition send to close off a route evil was using to leave the great blight, unsupplied and forced to fend for themselves.
| 36 dwarves, stable - growing pains, need to convert bb into full-sized corridors & settlement. Have basic farming going, core of walls across the canyon are there - need to build up, moat, fortify, bridge, but quite promising/fun. 9 trained marksdwarves, ready to draft 4 more (gem cutters, clothiers).
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu/old/8998

2007-11-19T16:53:56Z

Kidinnu: Added world name translation

40d Talk:Starting build

2007-11-19T13:18:53Z

Kidinnu:

40d:Starting builds

2007-11-19T13:14:36Z

Kidinnu: Added two challenge builds (?)

40d:Marsh

2007-11-19T02:25:38Z

Kidinnu: Spelling fix: saturated

A marsh is a type of wetland that is periodically or continuously inundated. A marsh is generally treeless, with a variety of grasses and shrubs. Compare with a [[swamp]].

== Marshes in Dwarf Fortress ==
Swamps and marshes tend to form around oceanic coastlines, especially where rivers meet the ocean.

Much like their real-life counterpart, marshes generally have a high water table, meaning that an accessible [[aquifer]] is only a few tiles below the surface (and in occasionally unlucky circumstances, directly beneath the surface). It can be incredibly difficult to nigh-impossible to extract stones from marshy areas, making the long-term feasibility of a fort doubtful; it is recommend that an additional, non-saturated biome be used selected as well.

Generally the landscape is very flat, with only occasional, small gradients. Ponds are abundant. The stratification is often hard to ascertain, as it is difficult to penetrate the aquifer. Generally there are a few layers of clay and loam followed, eventually, by stone and rock beneath.

Saltwater marshes make habitability more precarious, as the aquifer and surrounding ponds may not be drinkable.

Unlike their real-world counterparts, marshes in Dwarf Fortress generally have an abundance of trees, negating the difference between marshes and swamps.
[[Category:Biomes]]

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-19T02:21:38Z

Kidinnu: Diction fix

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil forests without aquifers are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-18T21:50:04Z

Kidinnu:

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain. Can't find a good site anywhere around the haunted mountains on 8998; all the rivers there are eroded too deeply. Seem to need to move away from mountains to find waterfalls (where brooks/rivers meet), but then worry about giving up rock quality - although current game full of sandstone & silt suggests otherwise. Evil unaqueducted forests are in short supply, however.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-18T21:48:09Z

Kidinnu: Update with yesterday's beh fortress and today's OK one

=Scouting reports:=

* [[User:Kidinnu/8998|Ushul Num (seed 8998)]]
* [[User:Kidinnu/9001|Gebbisorid Alu (seed 9001)]]

=Active Fortresses=

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! Current State
|-
| 1
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Lirukdakas
| (9,5) in narrow canyon
| Summer 1054
| 8 Nov
| Storytelling: northward expansion of Odorous Gates of Color
| 62 dwarves, thriving, but '''crashes c. 8-10 Hematite'''. First successful new fortress. One retcon due to stumbling upon Hidden Fun Stuff unpreparedly. Intermediate industry build-out in progress.
|-
| 3
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Akathzefon
|
| Summer 1052
| 9 Nov
| Approach magma
| c 30 dwarves, good bethabara but not happy with planned interior layout, haven't done anything to exploit caldera yet.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Ulengogredbom
| (9,7) northeast of the source of Velvetyorders the Musical Bad Trickeries (5x5)
| Autumn 1052
| 18 Nov
| Hunting party gets lost, sets up temporary camp to explore/reprovision
| 26 dwarves, stable (!) - dug in, have some marksdwarves, lost one to a giant eagle and my armorer's right arm to a giant spider, but learning to use the troops. biggest long term problem is that all the trees in the Terrifying forest are dead - 500 wood stockpiled, but none growing. limited supply of bituminous coal; a bit more lignite, but still, nonrenewable - pity, since plenty of flux & magnetite. currently considering sniper-war with troglodytes in chasm just for fun.
|-
| 6
| [[User:Kidinnu/9001|9001]]
| Udirudim Nekut
| (9,6) at bend in Hoarytamed
| Autumn 1053
| 13 Nov
| Carve out a tower (~ tower of london) from the hillside. Became first experiment with machinery.
| 49 dwarves, stable, building well advanced: tower, some diggings beneath, moat ready to flood, palisade outside. Still have most industry & stores outside rather than inside; noise propagation means we have to expand beyond tower borders deeper down. Had one mine flood pumped out pretty successfully.
|-
| 9
| [[Pregenerated_worlds#The Continents of Mist|757133686]]
| Umomas Arel
| (8,9) - site #15 in zip
| Spring 1054
| 15 Nov
| Get the hang of metalworking in a steel+wood-rich area
| 44 dwarves, stable, digging well advanced. Huge supply of iron & flux; need to dedicate more resources to metalworking, while building up military after our last ignominious defeat by the goblins. Replace the legendary miner who is currently going insane; get some glass industry functional in case that is what he wanted. Get clothing production going before founders are all naked.
|}

=Recently Abandoned=
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Region
! Seed
! Fortess Name
! Location
! Game Date
! Last Played
! Concept
! State at Quit
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Monomnitig
| (7,0) south of goblin fort
| Winter 1051
| 16 Nov
| Invest goblin fort; minimize specialization (Earth/Water/Fire/Wind/Void castes)
| 24 dwarves, critically low on food, merchants slaughtered in goblin fort - much fun! Then tried charging goblin siege with under-prepared military; they died, somehow several other dwarves (including leader) died. Couldn't find the corpse. Only legendary was a miner (Fire caste). Despecialization was a bad idea here; I'm new enough that gameplay has to be much more directed & optimized. Attempting to reclaim, df crashed.
|-
| 4
| [[User:Kidinnu/8998|8998]]
| Volaloddom
| (5,12), where the Spiders of Sourness enters the mountains above Cokathis (7x5)
| Summer 1052
| 17 Nov
| "Night Watch" - wall off canyon and stop things from coming down it
| 41 dwarves, very inefficient & unstable - running low on food, can't keep population controlled. Initial build too big/sprawling? I don't think so, but sticking with bb starts for now. Critically short on wood, since there was only space for 100 to grow (most "forest" is above the treeline); inefficient farm/seed spam is eating barrels & bins way too fast. No fun - choose easier site. too slow for laptop? this site might be fine with a (7x3)
|}

=Fortress Ideas=

* Undermine a waterfall and build a dwarven fortress around constrained waterflow; could do with 3x5 if I found the right terrain.
* Build something around a natural deep river or canyon - not very feasible in Oct'07 version with few hard-to-find rivers & caverns
* Castes: ground (farm/fish/chop wood), water (craft), fire (metal/mining), wind (war/hunting), void (leader) - doesn't work well under stress. Might be OK in a low-threat area.
* 8998 storytelling: assault the goblin fortress near the magma vent SE of the sword culture. (Failed at fortress farther north with Monomnitig when combined with castes; try again with specialization. Either fortress wants a 5x8 area, so need a good desktop - no laptop play.)
* Try the "Night's Watch" idea. Probably wants at least a 4x4.

40d:Farming

2007-11-18T14:21:00Z

Kidinnu: Farming tends to clobber my barrel supply; mentioned that in caveats

{{old|0.23.130.23a}}

'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so, you have to designate a crop for ''each'' season, and you have to do it ''again'' after the year is over. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

Early on, you should focus your production on edible shrubs or [[plump helmets]], although note that the seeds for the former can't be brought in your starting supplies, and the latter can only be planted underground. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten, and [[pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s produce cloth and dye respectively.

If you choose to plant shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield.

Depending on the [[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it and whether the plot was fertilized, a crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed.

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Starting builds

2007-11-17T10:30:17Z

Kidinnu: Added free equipment gained from ambusher & military skills

40d:Ambusher

2007-11-16T21:34:08Z

Kidinnu: Correction to my last edit: with testing, pure ambushers only get leather armor free.

Dwarves assigned to hunt automatically use the '''ambusher''' skill while hunting outside of the fortress, allowing them to sneak silently upon their prey. Dwarves using the ambush skill move [[Speed|slower]], but cannot be seen by enemies.

As an ambusher gets closer to his prey, there is a greater and greater chance he will be spotted and stop ambushing. The ambusher's chances improve as her skill improves.

[[Immigration|Immigrating]] hunter dwarves start with this skill. They come equipped with a set of [[armor|mixed chain and leather armor]], a full stack of [[Bolts|iron bolts]], and an [[Crossbow|iron crossbow]]. Starting dwarves with this skill get free leather armor.

In [[Adventure Mode|adventure mode]], ambusher is skilled up by {{key|s}}neaking and walking about. This will greatly reduce your [[speed]] just as it does in dwarf mode, but will cause hostile creatures not to attack you. Until you un{{key|s}}neak or someone spots you, you will gain a small amount of experience in ambushing with every step. Presently, smashing a creature's skull in with your bare hands does not count as being spotted, so the best way to tell if you're still sneaking is to check your speed in the bottom right of the screen.

[[Category:Jobs]]

40d:Ambusher

2007-11-16T21:12:58Z

Kidinnu: Noted that my dwarves starting with ambusher got free equipment

Dwarves assigned to hunt automatically use the '''ambusher''' skill while hunting outside of the fortress, allowing them to sneak silently upon their prey. Dwarves using the ambush skill move [[Speed|slower]], but cannot be seen by enemies.

As an ambusher gets closer to his prey, there is a greater and greater chance he will be spotted and stop ambushing. The ambusher's chances improve as her skill improves.

[[Immigration|Immigrating]] hunter dwarves start with this skill. They come equipped with a set of [[armor|mixed chain and leather armor]], a full stack of [[Bolts|iron bolts]], and an [[Crossbow|iron crossbow]]. Starting dwarves with this skill get free equipment: leather armor, a crossbow (observed bismuth bronze or iron), and perhaps some bolts.

In [[Adventure Mode|adventure mode]], ambusher is skilled up by {{key|s}}neaking and walking about. This will greatly reduce your [[speed]] just as it does in dwarf mode, but will cause hostile creatures not to attack you. Until you un{{key|s}}neak or someone spots you, you will gain a small amount of experience in ambushing with every step. Presently, smashing a creature's skull in with your bare hands does not count as being spotted, so the best way to tell if you're still sneaking is to check your speed in the bottom right of the screen.

[[Category:Jobs]]

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-16T21:01:49Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-16T20:32:01Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-16T20:25:24Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-16T20:25:03Z

Kidinnu:

User:Kidinnu

2007-11-16T19:22:49Z

Kidinnu: