User:Ehertlein

Pages I use Often

• Bedroom Design

Newbie Questions I have

• Is there a way to get rid of flies? Do I need to?

Get a cat and keep your food in underground stockpiles, and they should stay outside where they belong. But no, you don't really need to vanquish them; they may occasionally cause a bad thought in dwarves that hate flies, but they're pretty harmless. Certainly less so than cats. --Zombiejustice 11:58, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Ahh thank you. I find I have less flies now. I could be wrong, but I think I had an issue with flies because I had so many crops wilting in the huge underground farms I had dug. I have been better about that recently. --Ehertlein 17:30, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

• How do I stop thieves?

Move all your workshops and your trade depot underground to start. Post either canine or dwarven guards at the entrance to your fort in such a way that nothing can get past without coming within one tile of them. They will typically avoid traps, but will fall out of stealth whenever they are in the eight tiles surrounding a hostile unit (I don't think pets count, sadly, but war dogs do). You may even find it useful to assign a war dog to all your woodcutters and herbalists, as they are usually the ones finding thieves as they wander around the map. --Zombiejustice 11:58, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

I have a nice little setup of traps now in my fort entrance, followed by dogs on ropes, followed by another row of traps. Hopefully that should ease the issue. I'll need to find myself an animal handler to train my dogs though. --Ehertlein 17:30, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Animal Training is not a qualified skill: You'll get the same results with a Novice as with a High Master, the only difference is the time it takes. I'm not sure if untrained dogs will deter thieves, as well, so you may just want to assign a peasant to train those doggies up for you.

Just let me know if there's any other questions you have; I've only been playing for a couple months myself, but I'm happy to explain anything I know. --Zombiejustice 12:40, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Thank you! I didn't know that about the qualified skill. Is there a list of skills where quality matters on the wiki? Also I don't know if you saw my Fort Journal, but the reason I was getting everything stolen... I left it in the Trade Depot. :) --Ehertlein 15:46, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Anecdotal: I've had a Kitten destealth a Kobold Thief in the current version, so I'm pretty sure that Pets DO detect stealthers. --Nekojin

• What is the Job Check Chest?

If a dwarf owns a chest, he may put owned items into it and sometimes check if they are still there (my observation). --Caiburn 09:50, 24 August 2008 (CET)

Self-correction: Dwarves check chests that do not belong to anyone. I guess this could use investigation. --Caiburn 18:06, 26 August 2008 (CET)

Nod it seems odd that I would catch them doing that so often as well.--Ehertlein 18:39, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Fort Journal

Year 1

Not much happening this first year. Got my farm up and running, built some crude living quarters. Thanks to the wonders of Dwarven Syrup Roasts I bought everything I could want from the first caravan. No migrants this year, not sure why.

Year 2

Spring brought an elven caravan. Before they could even set up I see a big mistake. There are still goods from the last dwarven caravan at the depot. This explains how thieves were stealing goods last winter, I left them outside! When the elves do finally get set up we are ambushed. The 4 goblins are killed, but not before 2 elven merchants and 2 dwarves are killed. I loose my mechanic/architect and a farmer/brewer. Hopefully migrants soon...

Well the migrants came as soon as the ambush was over. I built some coffins and interred my dead and went to the business of getting these 19 new dwarves put to work. Many of them came with skills that were useful immediately. I put the new engraver to work smoothing walls in my living area. A cook that arrived became my new farmer/brewer since we already have a great cook. We got a ranger to train our animals (turned hunting off so he doesn't get himself killed) and 3 other animal handler/dissectors. Those 3 got drafted into the army as wrestlers for now (I want to be prepared for the next ambush!).

A weaver went insane while trying to create something. :( I didn't learn until later that I could have learned what he needed by checking the workshop he had overtaken. Oh well, I know for next time. Summer is now almost over and the small human caravan that stopped by had little I could use and seemed to like very little of what I had. Leaving that stuff in the depot to get stolen has certainly slowed down my progress.

The fall caravan from the mountain home behaved oddly. They came and unloaded and then left before I could even finish the meeting with the liaison. We spent the rest of the fall an winter moving the trade depot inside the fortress in hopes that caravans would feel safer. We also learned how to create a dump for the stones that were littering my useful spaces. Hopefully next year will be more productive.

Year 3

Spring

Well we finally had a caravan survive. The elves stopped by and we traded them some of our huge food reserves for some berries and a pair of Jaguars. Our dreams of the halls being patrolled by giant cats were dashed when our Ranger, Inod Zursullor, pointed out they were both female. The elves are tricksy!

New immigrants have bolstered our ranks to 52 sturdy dwarves. The newly appointed mayor now believes she needs some better accommodations so we are working to improve her office. The Captain of the Guard, a former Fish Dissector, is happy with his new rooms.

We need to start doing some digging looking for some ore at some point here. We can't depend on mushrooms to keep this fortress running forever!

Summer

The human caravan was a decent success. We bought everything we could use including all of their ore, logs, and barrels. It its obvious that we are going to have to offer more for their goods to get the armor and metal that we are now needing.

No immigrants at all this season. Odd, we had expected some with all of the improvements we made to the fortress to please the Mayor. In a strange coincidence, as soon as we had met all of the Mayor's demands, she was replaced by an election. Our resident Armorsmith is now heading our fortress.

No attacks since we moved the Trade Depot inside, but our hunter is laid up and her dog is dead. We didn't even see what did it. Probably the batmen from near the chasm up north. We also have a member of our military who has been bed ridden for months after a terrible leg injury while sparring.

Digging hasn't progressed well at all, we are trying to train a new miner, he is very slow.

Fall

Wipe Out... We tunneled into an underground river and loosed a slew of lizardmen, snakemen, cave crocodiles into the fortress. Few have survived. (I think we are going to abandon this fortress and use the lessons learned on a new location. Also going to move DF to my faster computer, the Athalon machine was getting 12 FPS while the slaughter went on.)