Calling all dwarf metagods!

[RCIX]

Thanks! you just saved me about 500 keystrokes de-forbidding what must be The Leaning Tower of Andesite by now!

2 more questions:
 * What advantage would i get by making toys over crafts? i only have about 15 dwarves right now, so i don't have an economy.
 * Why do miners not mine in a systematic way? i.e. i order them to mine out a big ol' square then they carve seemingly-random paths through the area sometimes. Just a dwarven quirk?

[Minty]

When making crafts, you definitely want to be making mugs rather than anything else if you can. 1 rock + 1 job == 3 rock mugs, each as valuable as a single toy/other craft item. The only reason I'd ever make anything but mugs is to fulfil mandates.

As to the mining thing.. It's a DF quirk.. Miners, in general, prefer to mine from the left, then the top left, top right, and so on whenever they can. Their system for choosing the next spot to mine is semi-random, sometimes picking one of the nearest designated spots, other times defaulting to the most nothwesterly spot. The only way around it efficiency-wise is to only designate relatively small areas at a time, then do the next lot once that's all mined out.

[RCIX]

Thanks! Call me nuts, but I want to avoid a catsplosion and want to be humane to the cats. Got any tips?

[Minty]

Well.. If you're averse to just butchering them before they adopt some elf-hearted Dorf.. You might try caging them instead? Build a cage (Can be made out of wood or metal, at either a carpenters or metalsmiths respectively) b-j, then (q)uery the cage, and scroll through the animals (+ and - keys), and assign them to the cage. They're like quantum stockpiles, in that a single cage can hold infinite amounts of critters. And critters in cages don't get pregnant. Though already-pregnant critters can give birth, spawning their young in a tile outside the cage.

Of course, by the time a cat's old enough to get pregnant, it'll have adopted someone anyway. And you can't cage adopted pets.

Personally, I like to butcher the little vermin as soon as they pop out.. Kitten-leather bags, kitten-skull totems, Limestone mugs decorated with kitten-bone, and the best of all? Kitten-biscuits from my kitchen.

[RCIX]

Yea, i'll probably do cages. Thanks!

What sort of dwarf management do you do? I have 5 broad categories:
 * Busdwarf (hauls junk around)
 * Chef (handles food and booze tasks)
 * Crafter (handles all craft related tasks, plus stone and woodworking tasks)
 * Digger (solely does digging)
 * Fighter (handles all weapon making and siege weapon related tasks)

Until i have a sufficient quantity of busdwarves, all dwarves except diggers are on hauling duty. Currently no dwarves do clothing, fishing, or soapmaking tasks, but that may change in the future.

Looking over some of the DF talk stuff the future looks bright for more chemistry type stuff to get in, which is of course a good thing
I thought of a couple of things that would be cool to see in DF:
 * Paint; turn dyes into paint then be able to paint smooth walls. Expansion of dye types for this? (came about because i want my walls to look nice ). Perhaps a form of improvement beyond and mutually exclusive to engraving? Also could be used in creating some form of murals or artworks.
 * Carbonated water; usable for creation of carbonated drinks, as well as plain drinking. Not unreasonable given that there are natural carbonated water sources in the real world.
 * Large doors? something to door off passages more than 2 tiles wide.

After i think of some more i might go register on the DF forums to post them, not sure. What do you think though?

[Minty]

Actually.. I have only four, no, five basic "castes" of dwarves that I set up (Using Dwarf Therapist. If you don't use it, download it NOW. Your brain will thank you. It makes managing labours pleasant, rather than an unending chore).

Miner - Anyone with even novice Mining skill. Only labour enabled, you guessed it, Mining.

Medic - Any non-Miner with two or more medical skills at adequate or higher. And the one with the highest Diagnostics skill becomes my Chief Medic.

Military - Any dwarf assigned to a squad who's been assigned equipment.

Reservist - Any not of the above with any armour skills. Weapon skills of secondary importance. Not yet assigned to a squad, no equipment assigned. Duties as Peon, below.

Peon - Everyone else that's not a noble. For the first couple of waves, all (and I do mean ALL) labours enabled. Once I hit about 20 Dorfs or so, I disable certain labours on everyone: All of the crafting skills, cooking, brewing, farming, all the metalworking skills, apart from furnace operating. THEN I re-enable any of those labours on any stunty that's got novice or higher in that skill.

What this does is give me a large pool of semi-skilled bodies, and very few idlers, as there's always something that needs doing, that more specialised dwarves wouldn't normally be tasked for. And, as things like carpentry, architecture, mechanics, engraving and masonry are active on virtually everyone, projects get built quickly, and I've a constant churn of blocks being produced.

Now, bear in mind I've not looked at the suggestions subforum on Bay12, so I'm not terribly well informed. I mostly lurk in the modding forum, and the other discussion forums, and I've never even registered. Though I've been playing DF for.. Quite some time now.

*The paint idea's a cracking one, imo. Finally, a way to decorate all those sand/loam walls.

*Carbonated drinks.. I'm not too sure on that one, to be honest.. Doesn't carbonation require access to rather high pressures, and other such things, most of which weren't available in early medieval (the tech-level I'm presuming stunties to be at) times?

*Large doors are a nice one too. Though you can get around the triple-door thing this way: Build a constructed wall.. b-C-w. Build a door adjacent to it, and adjacent to another door. Now, deconstruct the constructed wall. There you have it, a free-standing door, unsupported by walls. Only works with constructed walls, not natural ones, I've found.

Bear in mind that all of the above I'm viewing through goggles tinted .08, not 40d. If you're using 40d, ignore the medics bit.

[RCIX]

As i understand it, there are natural sources of carbonated water. So it would be a novelty thing if you could find a source on a map

Busy right now, but late tomorrow when i get done with what i'm doing i'll be back with more questions and condoplex pics!

[Frozen Critical]

I just No-Equipment embark

its easier to just toss everything aside then to repeatedly and troublsomly select things and shit like that

[RCIX]

You do realize that after you get an item/dwarf setup on the dwarf screen, you can press "s" to save it so it's ready in one go? I'm junk at selecting stuff yet so i'm relying on the custom setup that came with my tutorial copy though

[RCIX]

I have a small problem: about half my dwarves, including all my diggers, seem to have Terminal Party Syndrome. I freed my meeting hall room so they don't do it but if i set it back, presto! it's party land. As soon as one gets out, the next starts. Ideas?

Also, I need a fire-safe anvil but i apparently don't have one. Is the only way to get one to trade for it?

[Minty]

Anvils.. Yeah, they can either be bought from a caravan, dragged with you on embark or made at a Metalsmith's Forge. Which, you guessed it, requires an anvil to construct.

With the party thing.. Something I recently found out on either the Little Questions, or Facepalm Moments thread on Bay12: If you set a Dining Room, but DON'T set that Dining Room as a Meeting Hall.. THEN set up a zone (i) over the whole area and turn THAT zone into a meeting hall.. All idle Dorfs and pets will still gather there, but NOT hold a single party. Ever.

I've been using that method in my last three Forts, and it's working wonderfully.

(Edited for typos)

[Mánagarmr]

*remakes all his dining rooms* Thank you! You just saved me a lot of annoying partying.

[RCIX]

THanks for the help guys! i actually kinda abandoned (not abandoned per se, just left it alone) that fortress (and indeed that version) and i'm trying to get a fort ready for a succession game. I'll post back here once i make the thread.

[Minty]

Glad I could help you guys out.

I like to think of myself as an intermediate/advanced DF player. Not fully advanced, as I only recently discovered such interesting things as perpetual motion water-reactors, and I still have the DF Wiki open while I'm playing.. And I've never done anything massively Dwarfy yet, such as dammed a river, flooded the caves, cast obsidian, or made an orbital defence gun.

RCIX, if you're looking for players for a succession game, count me in. What version and tileset are you thinking of using? My preference is .08, with Phoebus' tileset, as that's what I'm running right now. But I'd be more than willing to try out Ironhand's tileset, as he looks to be doing rather interesting things that use the .PNG's transparency cleverly.

[RCIX]

Yep, it's .08 with Phoebus's tileset for me. I'm hoping that it will be fine in regular DF, but not yet. I just need to make sure my farm is working, and pile all the stone i found so far in a spot.