I made it past my first winter with no casualties!
No, no screenshots. My fortress is a MESS. Learning experience and a half.

Moderator: Thanas
Ah, the great first milestone.GuppyShark wrote:Woohoo!
I made it past my first winter with no casualties!
No, no screenshots. My fortress is a MESS. Learning experience and a half.
Press Q, and highlight the shop. Then give him a "build a motha'fuckin' bed" order. But don't actually give him that order, as it takes the mane of a Samuel L. Jackson in order to craft one. And those are quite rare.ColonialAdmiral wrote:How do you build a bed?
I have a carpenter, and a carpenters workshop, but he just sits inside and does nothing...
I can't find anything via the wiki on this subject...
You need a Fishery, as fish can't be eaten raw, and someone with the Fish Cleaning profession turned on. Make sure you're not just letting them sit there uncleaned which would explain it.Nephtys wrote:I never seem to profit from fishing. Getting a crapton of Helmets, brewing them then cooking seems to be the best food for me.
Skeletons aren't as dangerous as zombies, and Cougars, for all their fierceness, don't have the mass and thus dangerous unstoppability and numbers of a swarm of elephants.Covenant wrote:So far my haunted zone is not that dangerous. Just a few Skeletal Cougars waiting to eat any unwary Dwarves that happen to wander outside Castle Greyrock.
Make sure to read the wiki on irrigation to get this, but I'll try to explain. You want two floodgates hooked to the same lever (make sure to attach the first floodgate to the lever before installing the second or odds are you won't be able to reach it again without digging a new tunnel). So make sure you start with a mechanic/engineer who will make 4 mechanisms if you don't want to Nile-style farm. Then, lock the doors of the farm to avoid drowning the world, unlock the door to the control room (having a lever that might get pulled in the open is bad, put it recessed in a wall behind a locked, pet sealed door except when you need it).Nephtys wrote:I think the most efficient design I can think of early (pre-river?) could be the modular grid base. That is, split stuff up into grids of like 6x6 rooms, with a two-lane corridor between them. I can build three bigger places to use as underground forests or storage. If i need to change out a building's use, I can reconfigure the modules to workshops, storage, farms, each with openings in each direction to minimize hallway traffic and such. Hrm. I wonder what kind of base could be built with it's entirity post-river.
How do channels and floodgates/controlled flooding work? Can I just connect a floodgate to a river or channel that's full of water, open it, and it floods the room?
There goes the name "Dwarf Fortress"....05/27/07: Added civilization selection to the new embark screen, handled reclaim in the new embark screen, allowed resizing of fort area from 144x144 to 768x768 (full map square) during embark (standard is 480x480), handled basic merging of sites if you select an existing one during embark, handled extension of inside features after dig designations, handled a range issue with river elevations, updated pits, pools and chasm to handle the new mountain tops
I'm quite sure that he means selecting which kingdom of dwarves. After all, race =/= civilization. Fuckin' dungeons and dragons >:(ColonialAdmiral wrote:While looking through the changelogs for the next version of Dwarf Fortress I found this:
There goes the name "Dwarf Fortress"....05/27/07: Added civilization selection to the new embark screen, handled reclaim in the new embark screen, allowed resizing of fort area from 144x144 to 768x768 (full map square) during embark (standard is 480x480), handled basic merging of sites if you select an existing one during embark, handled extension of inside features after dig designations, handled a range issue with river elevations, updated pits, pools and chasm to handle the new mountain tops
Good to hear! So far I've enjoyed my floodgates, they really make farming easy. However, if I had to redo my base, I'd make them wider. Right now they're 7x7 blocks stacked lengthwise along the river with a single unmined spot at the middle 7'th all along the line down. I'd have probably pulled it one or two more widths to the right to get the most out of it.MRDOD wrote:Covenant, a strange rube goldberg idea to avoid the Rock thing is to rig your fortress' entrance to flood via a "doomsday" lever. That way, pull the lever, water rushes out, rocks all get flushed downhill outside. Close and lock doors.
The key is to hope you get two Lever pulls at close intervals, since there's a delay before the Lever will reset its mechanism. Otherwise you're in a bit of trouble.
Further, you can smooth outside rocks, building a bridge isn't nescessary.
As far as Trade Caravans turning, I'm 99% certain they can pathfind like less mobile and agile versions of other creatures, given that I've seen some trade depots at different North/Southwise placement compared to the roads.
You're warned beforehand. Make sure that you have doors on each side of the bridge, and when you hear that the water is coming, change the doors to 'forbidden!' so that they can't pass. Wait for the rushing torrent to go by, and then open back up. You should never lose a dwarf if you do this. I lost THREE once... but that's because they decided to sleep on the bridge.ColonialAdmiral wrote:The outside river is safer in the fact that your dwarves can't drown in it.![]()
The inside river will take your dwarves, and they will rush down the current, and they won't be able to get out...
You can however cut a chanel that goes into your fort from the outside, so you will have a farming area inside, just the source is outside.
I take it back though, the inside river is worth the risk.
Next stop. LAVA!