40d Talk:Cross-training

Segregation

It is normaly a good idea to seperate your non-cross-trained from your cross-trained, otherwise you end up with flying limbs. --Derekiv 12:13 22 December 2009 (GMT-5)

Pump operator notes

Not sure the toughness note is really that important. The gym is just used for dwarven stat gains, so dwarves are beefy enough to excell at whatever you throw at them. It scarcely matters how well they pump, just so long as they get to Legendary to be reassigned to the military or something else. I've noticed gym graduates make fantastic hunters for example. --ThunderClaw 17:47, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Well, it makes pump-training far more effective for dwarves that are already tough: they can hit legendary in a season or two, where other dwarves take about a year. So if you have a finite number of dwarves you can spare for training, choose tough ones. Strong ones can be put in plate and made to spar, or turned into siege operators.

Currently I'm training all my haulers, in shifts. Ones that gain toughness get to keep pumping until they're ready for the military. Strong ones get stone hauling duty. Everyone else gets food, item, or refuse duty.--Maximus 20:06, 3 November 2008 (EST)

I now give all my haulers the custom profession ROTC. --RomeoFalling 07:50, 8 November 2008 (EST)

I've been trying cross-training, and I'm not really seeing much point at the moment. The thing is, sparring practices three skills at the same time: Armor user, the weapon you're using, and shield user. The gym's rate of stat gain is almost the same as regularly sparring dwarves. And military dwarves are useful for something. Greep 09:05, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The "point" is several - 1) that some players don't want to put non-Attribute (or at least, non-Tough) dwarves directly into sparring; 2) that some players want military with more than "one-skill-worth" of training attributes under their belts; 3) that some players want to see what the attribute mix is on a dwarf before allocating to training (vs hauling/etc); and, 4) it's cross-training. Military dwarves aren't useful for anything but military - that's the "cross" part. There are several suggestions other than pump operator - use them or not - your call. --Albedo 18:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I guess gym training just isn't for me. But as for the one skill worth of attribute training, I thought attributes continued to rise even after legendary + 5. Like an uber miner would eventually gain 16 attributes? That's what the stat page seems to indicate Greep 06:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If you make two pumps, one above the other (Y axis, not Z), facing apposing directions, dig 2 channels at each end, making a 2X8 space, you can not only increase toughness and pump operator skill, but get happy waterfall thoughts. --Drunken dwarf

Dwarf Powered Mill notes

Actually, it is better not to cook seeds. As seeds have quantity cap at 200 seeds for each plant, milling will not produce seeds after you hit the cap. It saves a visible amount of food hauler's work. Denspb 02:58, 25 February 2009 (EST)

Managing

Assigning a dwarf to manager may be even better than clerking. I had two useless dwarves. Assigned one to clerk, another to manager+broker. Disabled hauling jobs for the manager. I then went to the manager screen and queued up a full screen of "Make Soap x30." I chose soap because I don't even have an alchemist's workshop and I didn't want any jobs assigned to existing workshops and disrupting work flow. I lost track of how many times I had to go back in and cancel/re-issue the soap orders. The manager reached legendary while the clerk was still a pathetic high master. I didn't measure steps, but their offices and bedrooms were all very close together, should be around 5-10 steps difference for each dwarf to go get food/drink.

Other factors:
-Clerk has a husband (no kids), manager is single
-Clerk went on break at least once
-Hauling was still enabled for the clerk, not sure if she did any jobs though
-At the beginning, Clerk had no skills, Manager had Normal Skill Wood Carving (not much good on my treeless map)
-Manager met with human diplomat and traded at depot during training

--Mjo625 17:18, 2 March 2009 (EST)

Chit-chatting

Having no meeting halls (well rooms, statue gardens etc) at all, and just having a single 1x1 meeting area REALLY boosted my haulers stats. I might not be the most efficient assigner of work orders, but some of the time most of my haulers were out of work and just spent their time at the meeting area chatting. I had a lot of proficient-or-higher in EVERY social skill within a couple of years. This might be an exploit. Thoughts? Tardface 22:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no. Chatting dwarfs make friends... and if some dies... Well, you'll have a nice domino effect. Dwarf don't like to lose friends. --Karl 23:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So, dwarves will actually be happier overall if you don't let them have any friends? :) Tardface 23:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

In the long-run (which inevitably includes many random deaths) yes.. very much so. Rather few, are the fortresses that can survive a death among legendary haulers, and fewer still are those than can survive several. --Edward 21:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Random deaths are not exactly inevitable unless you want them to be, and party forts are pretty resilient when it comes to a couple odd deaths: everyone is racking up "talked to a friend lately" thoughts like crazy, so even if a few deaths push them down to miserable they will bounce back up to ecstatic in about a minute. The danger is that if you have more than a couple of deaths at once, the immediate surge in unhappiness may cause spontaneous insanity, which will lead to more deaths... Rpb 11:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts don't stack on themselves, so you can only get one "talked to a friend recently" thought at one time. The wisdom of having dwarves too busy to make friends is still the best, hands down. --ThunderClaw 16:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I stumbled on a variant of this one by accident... I'd carve out a huge dining hall(max room size in one dimension, 4 tiles in the other), stuff it full of tables and chairs(in rows) to train stoneworkers, and set a few tables of different stones as room centers. It's easy to get "ate in a legendary dining room" before the first immigrants this way. I'd then get lots of immigrants, and not really have the attention to spare, so they'd stand around chitchatting. They'd all end up ridiculously happy - it'd take a string of close friends' deaths to get them down from ecstatic, and I've never had a tantrum spiral.

I also discovered (the hard way) that these high-social-skill dwarves can fight, at least well enough to quickly wipe out an early goblin siege, even with no military skills. I think it's the speed boost from Agility. Darekun 08:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Swimming

Has anybody considered stationing dwarves in an area with 4/7 water, thus giving them skill in swimming? Beds could be constructed in this area prior, turned into a barracks and if a food/booze stockpile is placed there aswell, the dwaves could be locked in there and would then perform all the normal sparring activities while at the same time constantly gaining swimming skill. --Overspeculated 00:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I successfully trained dwarfs in 7/7 water before. I filled a 5x5 space one z level down from a 15x15 statue garden with water and surrounded with ramps. Although the dwarfs frequently fell in, they were never far away from the sides and thus never drowned. (Although a cow managed to drown there and create quite a funk with the miasma since no one would wade in to dump the corpse--I'm still not sure how that happened since the dwarfs had no problem with it.) 3lB33 01:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but would military dwarves still perform sparring activities if their barracks was 4/7 under water? (where they can wade or swim) eventually raising that level once they are good enough at swimming. I'm testing it out as soon as I get my flooding mechanism done (I'm still new to this game so that takes quite a while for me) --Overspeculated 12:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Forest Gulag

I have set my fortress in an area with:

1. volcano
2. steep "low mountain" (entrance is on top of course)
3. sand
4. canyon (like "Grand Canyon")
5. chasm (on the "wrong side" of the Grand Canyon thankfully)
6. A forest covers my side of the "Grand Canyon"
7. Elephants wander through periodically, and I have some tame ones now too.

What I want to know is, what is the best way to use the forest to build experience. I'm happy to clear-fell the forest then start again from the beginning, but the fact is I am having a hard time so far keeping the wagon pathway clear as it is. I NEED MORE AXES! (getting there.)

For my non-woodcutter dwarves: what should they do with the lumber to get the most experience without making junk all over the place?

Do I make a stack of asherys, to make potash, to make clear glass "later"? Garrie 11:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Given the lack of answers to date my best bet seems to be:

1. clear-fell forest
2. Construct carpenter workshop from wood. Assign workshop to not lower skilled carpenters.
3. Build wooden weapons usable for weapon traps
4. have other dwarves constructing mechanisms
5. construct weapon traps using wooden weapons

Garrie 10:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, if you're planning on making lots of clear glass, you can make all of the ashes into lye - you can fit 100 units of lye in a single barrel, which saves lots of storage space. Plus, you can also use the lye for making soap, if you are inclined. --Quietust 12:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

You can't build wooden weapon. Only the elves have the secret to build them without hurting trees... Damn hippies. Yet you could build menacing wooden spikes or stuff like that... but... Wood only do half damage, so it's a waste of wood and your trap are not going to be really effective. You could instead do it with glass, a lot more step needed to have the same result, but it's way more fun, and you can build a lot of stuff from clear glass.

Since there's a limit to the number of tree you can fell, and since they don't grow fast enough (if you have 5-10 good woodcutters) you should had more step in the process to use a lot of dwarf, hence the clear glass production.

By the way, obsidian and wood make good rock sword, and it's as good as steel, if you have access to water, you could build an obsidian farm. --Karl 15:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This is ideas for a forest gulag as such they don't have to be practical!

While wooden weapons are not very efficient, if you can make a stack of them out in the boonies then all you have to cart in from underground is 1 mechanism per trap. So your (gulag) treecutter cuts down 10 trees per trap, your (gulag) carpenter makes 10 wooden spikes per trap, and your mechanic (knowing my fortresses, my ONLY mechanic) makes traps once some other poor sot drages the mechnisms out there. With a nice little wooden fence to restrict pathing a few weapon traps even with wooden spikes should do SOMETHING shouldn't they?

My three treecutters aren't keeping the boundary of 1/2 of my map clear of trees, let alone clear felling the entire map. These guys are full-time treecutters! Waste of wood is relative to the map, it is better (safer, less hauling) to ask for wood and sell traders the clothes from the invaders to actually get wood into the fortress (1 silk shirt buys 200 or so logs!).

Garrie 11:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I have had very good results with spiked wooden balls. A trap containing 10 of them almost always kills a goblin in one hit. A bottleneck containing a few rows of such traps can easily cripple a goblin siege before it even gets near your fortress. --LaVacaMorada 11:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use the wood to pave a road for the wagons. That'll suck up material pretty good, and keep the wagon pathway clear, but train a carpenter. Personally, I can never get enough charcoal, but I'm metal-happy. Darekun 08:29, 18 March 2010 (UTC)