[Flipside]

One trick I found for Marksdwarves once you get the Crossbows built is build your archery targets in the fortified areas near the front of the Fortress, that way you can order them to stand down and they'll still hang around near where you want them to be, and because they are practising their Shooting Skills, they already have weapons, so anything coming near the front of the fortress gets perforated.

Edit: To be honest, the first assault on my Fortress almost left it unpopulated because I had wrestlers, Goblin Archers unfortunately down most of them before they can get close, I had to rebuild with 3 healthy dwarves and about 2 more than managed to crawl back to base, one of which had lost a leg somehow and was pretty much useless.

[Shade]

To be honest, the first assault on my Fortress almost left it unpopulated because I had wrestlers, Goblin Archers unfortunately down most of them before they can get close, I had to rebuild with 3 healthy dwarves and about 2 more than managed to crawl back to base, one of which had lost a leg somehow and was pretty much useless.

But it's stuff like this that makes the game so damned fun. Constantly teetering on the edge of painful, violent, explosive disaster Still, I think I'm gonna dig a moat. Right now. That'll provide some quick safety until the main project is done.

[Flipside]

Indeed, that's most of the fun. In fact, I had to bury one of my most effective Marksdwarves today, Ezun Domasanun was one of the few survivors from the 'Raid of 54, in fact, he almost single-handedly took down the Goblin forces after they'd ploughed through the wrestlers. Alas, today his confidence overtook him, and upon spotting a Fire-Imp loitering around the Magma Vent, Ezun gave pursuit. The Imp, obviously taken by surprise by the sight of an enraged dwarf firing at him with a Steel crossbow, dived back into its molten rock element. Ezun was so keen on the hunt that he dove into the Lava after his foe....

He shall be missed, for a start, I have to train another Hunter up, since he was the only Ambush-trained shooter, he supplied a lot of the meat that kept the Fortress going

[Admiral_Stones]

Indeed, that's most of the fun. In fact, I had to bury one of my most effective Marksdwarves today, Ezun Domasanun was one of the few survivors from the 'Raid of 54, in fact, he almost single-handedly took down the Goblin forces after they'd ploughed through the wrestlers. Alas, today his confidence overtook him, and upon spotting a Fire-Imp loitering around the Magma Vent, Ezun gave pursuit. The Imp, obviously taken by surprise by the sight of an enraged dwarf firing at him with a Steel crossbow, dived back into its molten rock element. Ezun was so keen on the hunt that he dove into the Lava after his foe....

He shall be missed, for a start, I have to train another Hunter up, since he was the only Ambush-trained shooter, he supplied a lot of the meat that kept the Fortress going

Intelligence seems not to be one of his high stats.

[Dark RevenantX]

So much weird **** happens in Dwarf Fortress that it's kinda depressing...

[Shade]

Well, I started a new fortress. Thing went... wrong. Suddenly, violently, wrong

It all started with that moat I decided to build to make sure I had time to arm my military with actual weapons. Easy, right? Just dig a channel some 10 squares or so out from the gate and then put up a drawbridge. At least, that's the theory. What I didn't really take into account was the fact that I'd built my farms right underneath the area where I was building my moat. Result? Cave-in.

And of course, the thing about cave-ins is that they keep on falling until they hit rock - Floors do not stop them. Needless to say, the area below was pretty much mined out and had absolutely nothing there that could stop 50.000 tonnes of falling rock (and a few dwarves. Well, parts of dwarves at this point). This might still be recovered without too much trouble, some lives lost and a lot of floors to rebuild, plus a need for new farms, but it's entirely doable. Except for one thing. The channel leading to my water resevoir was also below the farm plots. Way below. But floors don't stop a cave-in.

The channel was breached. 95% of my fortress is below the water level of the brook that feeds my resevoir. And the channel was breached above the controlling floodgate's location... giving the water free reign to flood my fortress. Oops

[colecampbell666]

This game, I tried it, but the interface is really bulky.

[Flipside]

Heh, it's a very big game, and it's something you should expect to spend a great deal of time on to get anywhere. I'm starting a new fortress tonight, simply because I've had some ideas I want to try out

[colecampbell666]

I understand most of it now, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to place my bucket.

[Shade]

You don't place buckets. Dwarves pick them up on their own if they need one, and one is automatically used if you build a well or other building that uses them. For other stuff like doors, cages, tables etc., you place them through the build menu ('b').

[fener]

Also unless you have designated a stockpile for furniture, finished goods etc, the manufactured stuff gets dumped at the workshops themselves cluttering up the place.

Multiple food items can be stored in barrels convserving storage space, same thing with bins for the other items. Also cooking food helps reduce the amount of raw food you have laying about.

Also buckets are only useful for taking water to wounded dwarfs and of filling ponds.

[colecampbell666]

Cool. I figured the rest of the basic stuff out.

[NGTM-1R]

So, inspired by the great example of Boatmurdered (yeah friggin' right) I decided to try the whole lava-floods-world thing myself. It required a bit of cheating, unfortunately, and an active volcano on the map, and some trial-and-error-and-cheat-to-restore digging.

Unfortunately, for some reason the lava seems to have busted up my steel floodgates, or I maybe forgot to connect the levers correctly, or something else has gone wrong, and I can't turn it off. I've got a pretty good self-sufficent thing going with a population of about 75, but every siege, immigration, caravan and animal that enters the map instantly fries. (For this reason, my population only has the imported nobles of a population of 49.) I got a siege by the humans recently because so many of their caravans have been destroyed by the lava, but of course, the siege was destroyed by the lava too.

I'm not quite sure whether this is hilarous or horrible.

[Flipside]

Don't worry, it always happens on at least one fortress, I drowned half my dwarves in one fortress when my cunning anti-goblin plan backfired and flooded from the only entrance inward

Edit: And, to be honest, if you could find a way to only do it to migrants, it might actually come in handy later on in the game

[NGTM-1R]

The really impressive thing about it is that my fortress is still fine. It's just been turned into an unreachable island, so to speak, but so far living under a landscape totally flooded in lava hasn't bothered my dwarves one bit.

God help me if there's a cave-in though.

[Dark RevenantX]

Your dwarves are pretty darn badass.  I know I would be nervous if I was surrounded by lava on all sides in a sunken hole.

[Flipside]

My one 'complaint' about the game is that you cannot pick where on the map your wagon arrives, there have been several times I've found the perfect spot to site my fortress, only it's on the other side of the map to where the wagon is, so I have to start a huge mining project simply to start the fortress in the first place. Realistically, you'd drive the wagon as close to the intended location as possible. It's not a massive problem, but it can be irritating when you have enough concerns to deal with in the first place

[colecampbell666]

My one 'complaint' about the game is that you cannot pick where on the map your wagon arrives, there have been several times I've found the perfect spot to site my fortress, only it's on the other side of the map to where the wagon is, so I have to start a huge mining project simply to start the fortress in the first place. Realistically, you'd drive the wagon as close to the intended location as possible. It's not a massive problem, but it can be irritating when you have enough concerns to deal with in the first place

That happened to me once, I spawned far away from my intended location, right inside a mandrill group. My dogs fought them off, but I quit because since I couldn't see stone, I thought there was none. (I was just starting out)

[NGTM-1R]

I've had the wagon appear in places where I've wondered how it got there; one of my first attempts it appeared in a small nook at a bend in a river, with rock walls on two sides and water on the other two.

[colecampbell666]

When underground, does magma show up like rivers, or do you have to dig into a vein to find it, like rock?

And is magma a common occurrence? I have yet to find any.

Can I download the Boatmurdered map?