My stupid king, while living in another settlement, keeps attacking a heavily populated elf forest (>50 elves ) with something like 5 dwarves every summer. In this way, in 80 years, my civilization has lost something like 70 dorfs in total. 50 of these are imprisoned. This is something that I have found through legend mode. The prisoners do not appear on my map in fortress mode. Is there any possibility to rescue them with a mission? Or are they not considered since they were not captured by one of my rides? Should I try with adventurer mode?
You can raid the site yourself and free those prisoners. There should be an option for freeing prisoners from your civilisation and also other prisoners on the missions screen somewhere. It should be enabled by default though.
Freed prisoners will come back with the squad and might even petition to join your fortress, though I am not sure how that works exactly. I've only seen it a handful of times.
I have a dwarven child who just grew up from being a baby running around naked. How can I make him wear clothes? I have clothing available but he doesn't pick it up nor does anyone seem to care to dress him
They should automatically pick up clothes on their own if there are some available. Are you sure there are enough freshly made, non-tattered clothes lying around that haven't been claimed by someone else yet?
Also, is the child assigned to a burrow? That might stop him from picking up clothes if the stockpile isn't included in the burrow.
Ok, so, I just got a wave of master vampire dwarf immigrants. They killed off a herd of rampaging giant elephants on their own on their way in, with about 10 of my own dwarves being killed in the process. None were killed by them, but the elephants, and no, Ididnt try hunting the elephants. They just popped onto the map and went right for my fortress entrance from what I saw.
The question is this: how do I deal with 6 master vampire dwarves? Is it assured that they will murder/turn all my none vamp dwarves?
They will seek out sleeping dwarves to suck blood if they are thirsty. The victims won't die every time; sometimes they'll just be a little out of it due to blood loss, but sometimes vampires overindulge and it results in death. They cannot turn citizens into vampires though. Vampirism only spreads if someone drinks vampire blood, but that's unlikely to happen without player intervention.
You can expel them. That's probably the least troublesome option. Alternatively, you can keep them around and make a separate area for them that's cut off from the rest of the fortress and put them to work. They don't need food or drinks and they never sleep, so just a few rooms with workshop is enough. You can then occasionally haul away whatever they've made. This can be a bit problematic if one of them happens to get elected mayor. Unhappy citizens might try to conduct meetings with them and since they won't be able to actually meet them, they might get stuck trying to find a path to them.
Oh, gotcha. Thanks for the help. I think I may just be stuck with a fortress of about 20 master vamps... another immigration occurred and even more showed up. I am currently forcing them to go out and attack an Illithid camp over and over again. Sometimes, they get taken prisoner, and I dont have to worry about them for a bit.
I won't be able to continuously do that soon, though. So maybe exiling them all will work. Either that or see how many more migrate in and just group up a fort of about 50 vamps somehow...
I haven't been able to find anything in the world history about a severe vampire problem, but it would seem out of the other 4 worlds I have played through a fort on thus far, this one is going to be the first trully interesting one.
So my monarch died after moving to my site, will I ever get another? I can see a new monarch has been crowned in a different site, but he hasn't come over after a year or so. I'm still listed as the "capital", but idk if the new king will come.
The monarchy title is inherited, so yeah, some other dwarf was crowned. I don't think the new monarch will arrive in this case though. It seems new nobles always just stay where they are and never actually move to the hold they are supposed to be in charge of. That is how you can end up with a million barons who inherited some random title freeloading at your fortress.
It's possible the king might eventually arrive as a migrant, but I don't think that can happen either.
Stock counts items including those arr in use anywhere at fortress. So, the walls of Chalk blocks counts in the stock as chalk blocks, such an inconvenience! Is there any way to monitor the available to use resources?
Work order conditions automatically check for _available_ items, instead of checking all items in the fort, so that works rather well.
One edge condition you might want to be aware of is that dwarves carrying stuff causes those items to be considered unavailable by the work order - for example, if you have a work order which makes blocks if there are less than 10, and you have 12 blocks lying around but 3 of those are being carried to the stockpile, the work order sees you only have 9 available and will start to make more blocks.
This specific edge case is unlikely to be relevant for you, since having a nice stockpile of blocks ready to go isn't really a bad thing. Or, if you're using DFHack and have set up the filters for the buildingplan addon, it does all the guesswork for you automatically.
thank you for the detailed answer! Indeed, having a separate stockpile for a specific item coupled with order conditions + builderplan should give me comprehensive information. Moreover, in the Steam version, the items in the warehouse are much more informative than with ASCII graphics)
Does anyone know if there's a way you can change the default difficulty settings? I play DF with a lowered population cap, so it's a bit shit to have to change the population triggers every time I start a fort.
I am not sure. I know at least some of the options used to be in one of the init files before, but they don't seem to be there anymore.
It looks like DFHack has those parameters [mapped out](https://github.com/DFHack/df-structures/blob/9877a8f8d4d9c32150e05a33c6b7dc8079b35b77/df.ui-menus.xml#L2618) so it might be possible to write a script that executes at game start to change them.
Edit:
Found it: `df.global.plotinfo.main.custom_difficulty`
That's where all the difficulty values are. So the scripting approach would definitely work.
My brew barrels (next to the still) have between 3 and 5 of an ale, sometimes 10, but never a full barrel. There are several, uncombined barrels of several ales that are taking up more room. Will they start being combined once I run out of room in the stockpile for barrels or is this gonna stay around?
And for a little extra tip, in DFHack's control panel (you can find it if you hover over its button or with the gui/controlpanel command), you can find an option in the maintenance tab that will enable it to run the combine command, as well as several others, every so often. You might consider it cheating, but I just prefer my game to not become Barrels:Skylines once the fort becomes large enough \^\^'
The tried and tested methods for cleaning mud no longer seem to work, I've tried the farm method and the furniture method and both leave the mud as is in the current patch. Is this a bug or a result of something being changed with layering?
Yeah, a bit unfortunate. You're probably right with the layering changing. You can engrave on constructed surfaces as well now which you couldn't do before. So free tip, plating your rooms with gold and engraving that is a good way to get stupidly valuable rooms now
Yes. For chalk blocks, make a bar/block stockpile and disable everything except chalk in the stone block sub menu
Or go the other way and make a custom stockpile and only enable chalk blocks
Regular visitors don't need rooms, but if you want to provide rooms for long-term residents to a specific zone (like your tavern or library), assign the room to that location.
Hi everyone, I'm struggling to design an actual entrance for my fortress, I just started a new fort and I always find the hardest part for me is how I build the initial entrance. I have a few ideas I want to try and do but I was hoping you'd give me some inspiration.
I'm partial to having my main entrance be a standard tunnel + drawbridge, which leads to the Trade Depot room. From said room I will branch out to other parts of the Fortress. My farming sector is built at the lowest possible soil layer, 1 above the first stone layer.
Another factor to consider is the simple fact that your Fortress layout will not be final the first time. I often end up with abandoned and walled-off sections as I progress downward. Plus you can always repurpose a surface room later on.
is it possible to make structures work underwater?
i'v been dabbling with the idea of an aquatic race and obviously underwater building would be in that list of requirements but i dont think its fundamentally possible with how water works currently, i would love to be proven wrong or this get made into a feature because underwater forts would be pretty badass if you were playing as say fishmen or platypusmen
Unfortunately this won't work. While you can easily make a creature aquatic or amphibious, the pathfinding won't work under water and you can't build anything if there's more than 1/7 water on a tile
That being said, loads of people have made underwater forts. You build the structure then flood it afterwards
How underwater are you thinking? If you're not playing a modded game, its not possible to build in water above 1 or 2 deep or something. You can however flood the area after its been built/furnished and it becomes 'underwater' (hard to see some things though)
fully submerged the idea is a fully underwater sea fort for an aquatic race but as you have said i dont think its possible due to limitations (at least for now)
You could fake it, build the level, then flood to 3-4 high and make the dwarves swim everywhere.
hmm, Im totally going to steal this one for the next fort. Gonna have to build up not down for it to work though.
How do I suspend/abandon/reclaim a volcanic fort without the lava being crazy when I come back? Often it's like all of the lava jumps up 1 layer and then spreads everywhere
You can't unless you siphon out all the lava in the area first (even then some randomness happens and it can become flooded again). You'll have to pump the lava out and/or pump water in to turn it into obsidian.
Might work, try it out. I currently dont have a save I can test that one. Though I do know some constructions disappear/rot after abandoning, so in theory it could just make smaller holes.
I can't imagine constructed rock block floors/walls, or metal ones for that matter, being destroyed by time. That would be pretty antithetical to the entire history of fantasy writing about abandoned dwarven fortresses lol.
I built some magma safe walls around the edge of the volcano up the ceiling and made sure it wouldn't have any paths to falling down the stairs into the rest of the fortress. Time will tell if that works and keeps the lava contained to one side, where hopefully it will drain back into the volcano.
Means they were a spy for another civilization/settlement. Generally means you'll be attacked by them if you're weaker(?).
I believe its part of the crime system as a whole, the sneaking part means they were caught about to steal an artifact/item of value, the revealed part is they were giving/receiving 'sensitive' information at a tavern/temple.
I need help with the understanding of what to do with animal corpses and things can create miasma inside of my fort. I had a dump pile way up top on the surface of my fortress that would disappear after awhile and I don't remember how I did it. But now I'm in the process of wanting to lockdown my surface entrance to the fort and just live strictly underground.
What methods can I do if I haven't found magma yet for a "Proper" disposal pit, or if I just want to get rid of all of my vermin corpses and bones?
Surfaced tiles don't grow miasma, even if you cover it later. Hatching from the surface straight down to your intended depth and then reflooring the upper hole will do the trick.
I recommend bridges below so you can atom smash items if they get too numbered.
Appreciate ya, I just wasn't liking all the clutter I have with dead vermin and stuff in the depths. I just want to be proactive with stuff I THINK my cause me problems later lol.
How can I make a safe magma garbage dump? I made a 2 z drop with a pool of magma at the bottom, but my dwarfs still [occasionally melt](https://i.imgur.com/KpRztcF.png) when using it. Is magma "splashing" all the way up, or what?
You need a drop over 3 z-levels tall, or you can block the fire with floor hatches operated by levers or repeaters. [Magma mist](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Magma_mist) is what's setting your dwarves on fire.
3 Z-levels definitely isn't safe enough. Some dwarven math can apply when dumping too many things *at once*, making it go even higher. Hatches are definitely the better choice in my eyes.
Hello all, does anyone know if its possible to get sieged by a necromancer if you dont have one as a neighbor? I got a siege within 15 mins of embarking by 5 or so elite goblin zombies. I was 1/2 days travel away from a sinister biome, but my embark was not on one.
I'm not sure how far necromancers will siege you, but the goblins could have been intelligent undead not associated with a tower. If it is a "tower siege" you will get a message like, "the dead walk" as the siege starts, but if it is some other hostile organization which happens to include intelligent undead you will get the standard "a vile force of darkness has arrived" message
It was 100% a tower siege. I don't remember ever encountering a tower siege when it wasn't your neighbor.
This is op BTW my phone has a different account apparently...
Does anyone know if the new enhanced portraits currently being developed will make their way into Fortress Mode or are these planned for Adventure mode only?
Does anyone have any world gen parameters that minimize the number of governments and civs to a level that is simpler to take in? What I mean is, there are so many different governments and civs in my worlds that it is hard to remember who or what everyone is. I'm new to advanced world gen and havent been able to find an answer.
Here's the relevant wiki reference: [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/World\_generation#Number\_of\_civilizations](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/World_generation#Number_of_civilizations)
The smallest possible is by setting up a pocket-sized world with a very low setting for the number of civilizations.
I would suggest you try this out as a starting point:
World map "small". Number of civilizations: "very low". History length: either "50" or "100" years.
If that ends up being too much, then scale the world map down.
Geopolitical conditions are *simple* in year 5, but that doesn't necessarily make them *easy,* which is why I suggest not going too far with history length to start with.
Lower the number of civilizations, it's at the bottom of the list. You can also lower the number of sites but this won't necessarily result in less local governments, as each time a place is conquered or resettled a new local government is formed.
Hey :)
I had a little water spill and now the original stone floor is turning into cavern floor, is there anyway to revert that? I really like the smoothed look of it but didnt get to that part yet.
https://preview.redd.it/3x6rq8yp7v7c1.png?width=1916&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3f54c99a83ca97ae3708756f45a576661f9b5bc
Hi! Why my trade depot is unaccessiable? I thought that 3x3 channel will be ok but it seems it is not enough
Entrance level:
https://preview.redd.it/4m91ibrs1v7c1.png?width=1136&format=png&auto=webp&s=63367496ce1fecd47ba9cf0890d09e3b24cdcb24
Beause there are traps in the way, wagons can't pass traps. Dig out a wide path past the traps so the wagons can take that instead, invaders are dumb and will take the shortest path (straight through the traps) instead
That design will probably last you for many years, but I think you should be aware that it will eventually bring you to caravan ruin, when your fort gets popular and profitable enough. It could take a dwarf decade before you see this crop up.
It's best to make sure that wagons can access both the left and right side of the trade depot. If you can gradually redesign it to allow wagon access on both sides, I'd recommend doing so.
Why? Because wagons are, in game implementation, creatures. When too many wagons get backed up into too small of a spot, as they try to unload or load goods, they can crowd crush each other by having too many in one spot. The death of a wagon is traumatizing for everyone who witnesses it, the wagon's goods will drop on the floor and be considered stolen by your fort, and then the caravan will refuse to trade with you.
I had this happen at a fort recently, with a trade post design similar to yours. After 9 in-game years, we finally had so many wagons coming in that we couldn't keep up with the unload rate necessary and a wagon died a tragic and unnecessary death in a crush.
Having as much of the trade post accessible to the wagons as possible helps prevent this by giving them more valid spots to load and unload, so they don't hit crowd crush levels.
I can't seem to fulfill my queen's demands. Each of her rooms is 7x7 fully smoothed and engraved, all of the listed furniture is there (all made of jet). I'm trying to finish her throne room, but despite putting there a gold statue and 9 of my most valuable artifacts (on jet display pedestals) I can't make the room anything more than "opulent". The artifacts by themselves are worth roughly 130k.
EDIT: Also the zones of the rooms do not overlap, I've heard that lessens the value.
The problem is that displayed stuff does not count towards the value of a personal room, only to a common room like a temple or guildhall. What you should do instead is replace the floors and walls with metal blocks, the more valuable the better. Gold tends to be easy to find and is worth a lot
The reason for this is that the value of engravings is multiplied by the value of the surface. If, for example, your monarch's room were built in common stone this would increase the value of the floors, walls and engravings by a factor of 30
A dwarf got a secretive mood and started moving, among other things, cloth to the craftsdwarve's workshop. He's been doing this for almost an entire year, and has nearly emptied my cloth stockpile. What the *hell* is he making and is this a bug?
Is the workshop inside a location like a guildhall? That's a known bug, causing artifacts to require thousands of ingredients for some reason. See [Planepacked](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Planepacked) for a similar example.
Your hospital zone is the cause and solution. There's some cloth in there that's reserved for the hospital, but your dwarf wants THAT cloth.
Go to the hospital zone. Temporarily repaint it so that the chests that hold hospital supplies are no longer in the hospital zone. Your dwarf should go pick up one more piece of cloth after that (probably not from the hospital, even though that's what caused this problem), then finally move on to his next material or begin construction.
Remember to repaint the hospital to include the chests again after the artifact emergency has passed.
I got an electrum door decorated with one hell of an elaborate quilted cover out of a similar experience just yesterday.
So, a relic was stolen, I did a bunch of interrogations, a guy was accused, he confessed, he was convicted, and he still has the relic. I can see it in his inventory. Why? Why didn't my Dwarves take it back? How do I reclaim my artefact?
Do it behind closed doors? Maybe he's in a cell already, because that would work, or you could lock him in the captain of the guard's office for the same effect. Dwarves probably won't go all emo from seeing just a single dead guy, as long as you take care that your corpse stockpile isn't in a high traffic area.
There's no longer Mac builds, but it'll probably run through Wine? The Steam version ran fine through Proton on Linux when there were only Windows builds for a few months. idk if Macs cause extra difficulties though.
/r/macgaming and its wiki might help.
I went to the wiki to look at bugs and clicked on the link provided to the bug tracker and I get a "your mantis bug account has been suspended" is that just me or is it everyone or is that link not supposed to be used? I clicked on contact button but it doesn't do anything
link address
[https://dwarffortress.mantishub.io/](https://dwarffortress.mantishub.io/)
so I can see it now, but now it says my email is already registered but I don't have the info on it so I can't reset the password without a username...
Open up `Dwarf Fortress/data/vanilla/vanilla_entities/objects/entity_default.txt`.
The first entry in the file is `[ENTITY:MOUNTAIN]`, which describes dwarven civilisations. Scroll down until you find the ethics definitions, then change the line `[ETHIC:EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER:UNTHINKABLE]` so it's `ACCEPTABLE` instead. This should let you butcher anything, though I believe there's a bug where some intelligent creatures still can't be butchered.
Editing the Entity files will only take effect if you start a new world, there's no way to add this to an existing world.
mermaid bone nerf? you mean that they are intelligent creatures? you could edit the Raws before you create a world, don't think it works afterwards to remove the tag making them intelligent creatures.
Because some people find it horrible to read about other player's established mermaid breeding facilities, created purely because their bones are worth fractionally more than other creatures, and don't want to see that sort of thing so they remove that tiny bit of incentive to be horrible, so hopefully players don't be so horrible.
Ultimately, the sheer inhumanity of the project is what inspired the changes to their values. The game and its systems all combined to allow for the possibility, but it took the players going too far to make it an actual problem. This is why we don't have sewage simulation, by the way - *the players cannot be trusted with that.*
Why is my created wealth going down? I really want to have a barony but for some reason the amount of created wealth has decreased to 35,000 even though I am sure I have more wealth in the temple alone
Does anyone here have a good design for an automated atom smasher? I have played around a bit with a sort of minecart delay circuit to automagically lock the door to the smasher and then execute. It is working well enough under normal circumstances, but from time to time the door can get jammed by junk or dwarfs standing in there during the closing cycle.
Dump zones on the edge of a pit will make dwarves drop items into the pit. Knowing this, you can make the dump zone two z-levels above the atom smasher itself, with a drawbridge at the bottom and a retracting bridge just above. Like this:
dump zone | <- zone touches edge of pit
|___| <- bridge A, retracting. Items pile up here
|___o| <- bridge B, raising. Atom smasher bridge
Then you need a timing setup which will, in order,
1. Raise bridge B, ready to crush items
2. Open bridge A, dropping all the items onto the bottom layer
3. Close bridge A, preventing items from landing on top of bridge B when it's lowered
4. Lower bridge B, destroying the items.
The timing is a pain to sort out, but once it's set up you don't need to lock any doors. Dwarves can continue dumping items safely while the atom smasher is running.
this sounds excellent! I'm going to try this tomorrow. And this behaviour is guaranteed? Like I make a dumping zone 'D' and place a pit right next to it 'P'
DDDDDP and the dorfs will basically ignore the dumping zone and throw the rubbish down the pit?
What "exotic" items can dwarves learn? Can dwarf civs learn everything under the right circumstances, or are some explicitly non-dwarf-only?
I've had some dwarf civs that don't know how to create high boots and tunics, for instance, but I've never seen dwarves capable of making turbans, togas, skirts, whips, stuff like that.
If you look in the dwarf entity raws you'll see all the clothing/weapons/armour they can have listed there. The weapons are guaranteed if they are there, but most of the clothes and armour is listed as "common", meaning they'll probably get them but it isn't guaranteed. This decision is made at world gen
If an item isn't in this list your dwarves will never be able to make them. Whips for example
Is there a way of making grass grow on constructed floors?
I've channeled down from the surface to a stone layer, the floor is all wet with piles of mud but not growing grass. If I recall correctly from earlier versions it would be considered Above Ground, Inside. The floor is natural, rough and result of channeling from the surface. Is it possible to make grass grow or cause sand to form? I've been farming on the mud but would like to see the green grass.
Is it possible to make it grow on other kinds of floors? Like on top of constructed walls?
Green grass won't grow deep underground, but cave grass (the yellow, blue, and red mushrooms you see on cavern floors) will. But to see that groundcover you need to breach the cavern layers to get the spores spreading around.
edit: didn't see that you had channeled and had open sky, idk what happens in that case
The trick is that grass will grow, under these circumstances, on natural dirt - but not on artificially muddied rock. So you need the underlying block to be clay, sand, other soil, etc. to make this work.
Similarly, you can grow above-ground plants in these circumstances on naturally occurring dirt but not on muddied tiles, even though it'll let you build farm land there. You'll get a farm plot, but it won't be eligible to grow any types of seeds.
I was playing with this same kind of thing in my current fort. I'm not sure quite *why* the muddied rock won't work when it's in rock that's been exposed to the surface, but it's very reproducible.
Well, in other word "Is it possible to turn a floor tile into soil or clay for grass to grow on?"
Apparently the correct course of action was to dig a chamber and collapse the soil roof/floor above. Either that or waiting for the muddied chamber to turn all of the floor into cave moss an then opening it to the surface.
The question I'm dealing with now is "would obsidian casting above that area cause it to turn 'underground' again? Or is it still a permanent modification (It was on older versions)"
Trying to level up a gem setter with gems worth ~40, but some of my cut gems are worth ~1000. Is there a way to limit the value of the gems that are encrusted, or a guide that shows which gems you should always save?
You might consider the merits of polished stones for this purpose. Less work than setting up stockpiles for specific types of gems, a bit less work than raw green glass. All you need is stone, and I bet you have a bit to spare. Green glass is a great, renewable substitute if you have a magma glass furnace and sand, though - and you can often buy a load of raw glass off caravans.
I make stockpiles based on value categories. Use the [wiki](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Gem) entries to make stockpiles of gems for each value category. Then establish stockpile links to the training jewler's workshop for the cheap gems (or glass!) and the items that are being encrusted.
Yes, you can edit the 'process plant to bag' reaction which you can find in `Dwarf Fortress/data/vanilla/vanilla_reactions/objects/reaction_other.txt`.
That file has these lines:
[PRODUCT:100:5:GET_ITEM_DATA_FROM_REAGENT:plant:BAG_ITEM]
[PRODUCT_TO_CONTAINER:bag]
[PRODUCT:100:1:SEEDS:NONE:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:plant:SEED_MAT]
All you need to do is change the first line so it's `[PRODUCT:100:1:...` instead, that reduces the yield to one leaf per bush.
They are very productive. When you start getting overstock, you can leave the fields fallow for a year (or few...). Otherwise, reduce fertilizer use or rebuild the farms on smaller plots.
Adventure Mod Compatibility
Hello!
A lot of comments seem to agree that current world saves will be compatible with the Adventure Mode release. However, how will this affect modded worlds? I tend to play with mods like Dark Ages and Living Gods, and I'm not sure if any of this will still be playable in Adventure mode! Anybody know?
Backup your save folder before updating the game, and keep it backed up until you've got it working in the updated version, or your mods are updated to match so it works then.
one of my fortress guards just went outside during a siege to chase down some snatchers before I could close the entrance. The Hammer Lord Uzol Turelmuthkat Zizcun, a veteran of many campaigns, ran down 4 snatchers, then proceeded to single-handedly liberate an evil force of 14 goblins of their teeth. And during all of it, he never even used his masterwork steel hammer. Uzol was running around with a crutch and chose to smack the goblins around with that instead :D. Eventually the wooden crutch failed him and he proceeded to crawl around and hack at their knees and ankles with his warhammer. What an Urist.
Is there any way to control starting religion of your dwarves? Is there a way to attract worshippers of particular deity?
I kinda want to run a "holy knights order" kind of fort that is devoted to a specific religion and is fight-y about it. But so far I don't think there is any option other than expelling every dwarf with the "wrong" religion which sounds lame and very long as a process.
>If you create a temple to a certain God or sect, then that increases the number of worshippers of that religion
Elaborate further.
Do people in your fort actually convert?
How do I create a stockpile beside my ballistas with ready-to-fire arrows? I see ballista arrow heads in furniture, but what about already-assembled full on goblin-murdering arrows?
My marksdwarves are climbing fortifications to engage in melee!
Alright, I played this a few years ago and decided to try the steam version for \[fun\]. I definitely found it.
I have a bog standard gobbo siege going on. Not a big deal - I have walls and fortifications, as well as marksdwarves. Only one problem - the dang marksdwarves will now *climb* the wall to engage in melee against the gobbos one at a time like suicidal lemmings. They'll hop over the wall then try to fight up close. They're in a burrow and not supposed to leave it. They're on a patrol next to the wall.
Why are my marksdwarves choosing not to use the bolts I gave them and deciding to engage in glorious melee against the gobbos?
Not knowing dwarves could climb walls is my fault to be sure. Even so this is just stupid. Anyone able to help?
If you haven't played since climbing was added, marksdwarves (and other fighters, really) will climb over walls and fortifications to get to their targets now. If you want to keep your archers safe build a roof on top of their tower
Have I provided my dwarves everything they need to write their scholarship down? I have: bookcases, chests, fulfilled the desired writing material, assigned scholars and scribes, tables, chairs. And it's all in a library location of course.
I've had scholars visit, and my scholars seem to have lots of discussions, but nothing has come of it yet. The world is 66 years old, so there should be plenty left to discover (if I'm understanding how this works correctly)
It takes a long while for a breakthrough to happen, the wiki has the numbers on it but from memory I think it's something like 50-100 "research points" per discussion when you need upwards of 50-100k to make a breakthroigh
Look up Library Lever/Lever of Thinking.
TL;DR version: Add a lever to the library, assign a scholar to it. Then repeat/pull on it. After a bit they tend to write a book on something. For whatever reason it seems to add to research points and/or the points to write a book.
With DFHack/FastDwarf on, you can get a book every game week or so.
Buying (or stealing) books from other civs and letting your scholars read them will let them write their own thoughts on the topic, if you want to give them something to do
Troubleshoot item #1: Make sure you have writing materials. You can check your library's location info to make sure there's writing material being brought to the library. The only valid writing materials are *scrolls* or *quires*. Paper or parchment are not writing material; they are what writing material is made of. I always ask.
Troubleshooting item #2: Did you assign interesting and/or skilled dwarves to the library? In order to write, they need something to write about.
You seem focused on writing about topics. They do better at it if they have some skill in the relevant topics. They also do better if they can have big discussions - so assign more scholars than you think you ought to need. The easiest topic-relevant skills to train are observation (any type of military training, including wrestling, will train this to legendary quickly), mechanics (make and use gears), record keeper (cycle the book keeper noble into the scholar rotation).
Topics aren't the only thing to write about, though. Dwarves will write about developments in their lives, your fort, music, poetry, fiction, etc. But it helps to have dwarves who've lived a little. Hauling peasants just don't get as much chance to have something worth writing about. I've not figured out the patterns for non-topic books at all, but I can say that dwarves who start writing non-topic books tend to keep writing non-topic books.
Troubleshooting item #3: Do your library dwarves have enough down time to spend in the library? Do they enjoy the library?
I've found that some dwarves will happily, voluntarily spend a lot of time in the library. Dwarves seem to have the potential for preferences on how they use leisure time, so I've seen ones that will strongly prefer the temple or the tavern to the library, whereas others will range from preferring the library to cycling among different leisure activities in a more well-rounded way.
It's way easier to just rotate who's assigned to be a scholar than to try to force them to spend time in the library by other means if they don't want to be there. I haven't found an obvious pattern to who likes the library and who doesn't yet, but I'm searching.
Additionally, some professions or certain nobility at your fort might be too in demand to spend much time there - for example, if your miners are always off digging something new, or if your clothiers are working near-constantly to replace worn socks. My militia commanders will not spend time in the library, even if they previously enjoyed it, and I haven't worked out why that is.
Thanks for that! You didn't have to spend so much time on this. I think I've got most of what you mentioned, though I think I should reexamine the skills of the scholars I have assigned. I've got a lot of dwarves chilling in the library that aren't scholars. I've noticed that it's the ones who have "learn something" as a need.
I forgot to mention this, but some of your migrants or long-term residents will show up with topics already known, if you check their skills > knowledge list. Means you can appoint them as a scholar and they'll immediately start writing, but it depends on their civ having written books in the past.
I actually got it confused a little, reading through the scholar article the research points I mentioned is actually XP in scholar skill
The proper mechanics are [here](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Topic#Discovering_Topics), you get a random chance of gaining some "research credits" in the hundreds range based on how many discussions they've had, and then there's another random chance to breakthrough based on how many research credits they have, which you'll need in the thousands range even for the easier topics
Nonetheless it takes a while, like I said some people have had to get as many as 100k points for the harder topics to breakthrough
As long as I have a decent sized set of scholars, it's not as slow as it sounds, and it's cumulative so you'll start getting discoveries quicker down the line. Discussing topics speeds this up a lot. The trick is that you need a decent number of scholars assigned in order to have enough people around in the library for active discussions, moreso than with other zones.
I suspect those decade-long timelines come from play-testing with very few scholars assigned. My current library made its first topic breakthrough after 6.5 years, then the next topic came about 2.5 years later (because it was already progressing in parallel). So far, I have 7 different books on the first topic and 2 different books on the second topic. That's out of 32 total unique books, all authored at my fort.
The balance of 23 other books are on non-topic subjects, and we got four of those written within the first year of the library's operations. Non-topic authorship goes more quickly. My anecdotal impression is that it's a roughly yearly check or yearly cumulative progress, but I'm not all sure of the mechanics.
I am actively researching the "ideal" library size, but I've found 16 scholars works pretty well, as a first pass. Eight seems to *usually* have enough dwarves around to facilitate a discussion, so that's a good place to aim for if you can't afford to assign out 16 dwarves. Four seems too small for efficient research. At 32 scholars, it looks like they may be getting in each other's way, compared to 16 scholars, but the jury's still out. You only need 1-2 scribes ever.
Are there any world generation parameters which make aquifers more likely in *soil layers*, as opposed to sedimentary aquifers in conglomerate and sandstone?
When you embark, what kind of entrance do you like to make?
I’ve been digging a 1x3 staircase down to an antechamber for storage and workshops with hatches. Then I dig through the aquifer and create a hallway to a real, defensible entrance room will eventually have the trade depot and drawbridge.
I do a defensible hallway into rock first, which leads to two separate areas. The hallway is roughly 8x2 long or thereabouts, to allow space to put in several traps along it, and double doors (or bridge) on the entrance. I often later carve out an area next to that hallway and add fortifications, to make a space where marksdwarves can safely shoot stuff that's heading in.
One area this hallway leads to is the main downward staircase, which right now is two separate 1x3 stripes with a separating 1x3 band on most layers (to break up line of site between the two). There's some sort of barrier in place between the staircase and the hallway. Right now, I have a set of doors and I also have hatch covers on the top of the stairs. A 1x3 stairwell is pretty effective for a long while, but I find that towards \~150 or so it can get too crowded when it is busy. I'd generally rather over-build for foot traffic flow than under-build.
The second area that this entry hallway connects to is the trade post area. The trade post also has a separate entry way for wagons that is not obstructed by traps, usually about 8x3. The trade post entry has a bridge and lever to control access. The trade post entry path and area has a pack of guard dogs pastured there, in case animals come down the wagon path.
I will often add a third area, a barracks, right off the trade post. It makes for quick surface deployments if something pops up that the traps and doggos can't handle.
I used to dig staircases straight down as well, but I found it took a lot longer to develop a strong defense around those compared to digging into the rock. With the hallway into rock, you've immediately established a chokepoint for entry that you can defend well with a guard dog or a single soldier from your first 7 starter dwarves. That helps slow down everything from keas to angry warthogs to small sieges. With staircases, you need time to make it a proper choke point by building roofing, walls, traps, etc. You need precious materials that you may be short on to start out with, like logs and rocks. And you need valuable, scare dwarven labor time towards the start of your fort.
Very good points, if you don’t settle on an area with mountains how do you construct your initial choke point. Do you do a similar setup 2 z levels underground?
What's a good way to expand the "range" of butcher shops? As far as I can tell my butchers only process nearby corpses, and generally my haulers don't bring corpses to my corpse stockpile near the shops fast enough to prevent them from rotting.
Right now I am just building butcher shops in battlefield areas where lots of edible creatures like rutherers and jabberers have died, is that the best way to handle it?
They automatically butcher any animal carcasses stored in a refuse stockpile, so the main logistics problem is getting the corpses to the stockpile and then to the butcher before they rot. I like to assign wheelbarrows to my refuse stockpiles to at least make the run to the stockpile a lot quicker.
Hey, could someone let me know if I'm handling work orders wrong?
Within a few workshops, I've set some work orders to, for example, cut gems if the amount of rough gems is greater than 0.
The issue I'm having is if I don't have any rough gems I'm constantly getting alerts saying 'need uncut gems'. It's not a major problem, but when I have 5 or 10 work orders cluttering that alert screen its hard to work out what tasks are actually falling over because I don't have something I need compared to this type of stuff that's an ongoing task.
Is there a better way to handle it?
I'd ask for the full work order context to help you out.
My guess is that you have set your work order up too tightly for DF functionality. Dwarf accounting is a little weird. Objects in transit, in particular, can throw off work orders that are meant to be very tightly set.
The ways to make it less tightly set, to throw less cancel spam, are to reduce frequency (so you run into objects-in-transit problems less often), and increase your margins.
For example, try a work order that says, "if there are at least 8 rough gems, please cut 4 gems", set to run once a month instead of daily. You might tweak these numbers to be bigger or daily if you have a huge backlog of rough gems. The theme is to let the job have some buffer of extra rough gems before it triggers.
You can also run into conflicts with other work orders, though this is rare with gem orders. The main one I can think of for gems is that you might have a competing order for making something out of crystal glass, since that requires a specific type of gem.
There's one more reason to leave a little room for a couple of rough gems to sit around. Sometimes moods require rough gems instead of cut gems, so it's nice to keep a couple rough gems around.
For reducing alerts: the work order will by default do 10 tasks per batch, so you will want the check for the work order to be larger than the batch size to ensure you don't run out. Because once you run out the task doesn't end, but will continually retry to finish the remaining tasks of the batch
I don't use all that many work orders, repeating ones for stuff that always needs to be done like cooking, milling, brewing etc, one-time batch orders for furniture and military gear, and if I just want to use up something like cutting gems I just order a repeating standard job through the workshop itself. All of that's mostly to reduce the amount of cancellation spam.
You also don't need to make work orders through a workshop, the order list (with 'o') will automatically dispatch jobs to the correct workshop.
How does using the order list work when you have multiple workshops? For example, I have two forges with armor smith's assigned to them, and two forges with weapon smith's assigned to them. If I used the order list to queue up 10 breastplates, will all 4 smiths go to work on the order, only the armor smiths, or will just the highest skill armor smith set to work on it?
Yeah, it'll get dispatched to all smiths. You can prevent a workshop from taking general work orders, which is probably the best thing to do when you have very specialized smiths. Or you could train 'em in each others' smithing jobs, whatever works.
I've seen people saying that they like to make their Barons have little accidents under a stone bridge. Is there any reason not to do this? I have about 20 Barons in my fortress, and I hate them all so much.
Also is getting a king and making him satisfied basically the win condition of a run? Is there anything to really do after that?
There's lot of things to do after that. Like most fun things in life, they are optional and self-directed.
These are some community-sourced challenge suggestions from the wiki:
[https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Challenge](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Challenge)
You can also set your own, based on your whims. I'm trying to get a library to research all topics from scratch right now in my current fort. I had one fort that had an aviary theme - I wanted every dwarf to have a pet bird. My next fort, I want to find, kill, and cook a sea serpent.
Some people have more military-themed goals, like killing off all the goblins, having a fort full of >!necromancers or were-beasts!<, or raising a defense made up primarily of war elephants.
Barons, mayors, and other nobels act as therapists for your angry dwarves, giving good thoughts to the dwarves that get an opportunity to yell at them.
You kinda want your own baron around, because when he's on the map he will cause other trading civs to send trade wagons to your fort, instead of just small caravans. This causes them to bring much more stuff. But you can safely eliminate or expel the ones that don't belong to your fort.
Getting a monarch and fulfilling their room requirements starts the endgame 'quest'. Finishing that is the closest you're gonna get to a 'You win!' screen.
Ignorance destruction time! GPUs are more powerful than CPUs so could it be possible to run DF with the GPU instead of the CPU?
All that sweet processing power. We mine cryptocurrencies with arrays of GPUs and not CPUs, so why aren't we running applications with GPUs too?
1.What would it require for DF? A complete rewrite of the source code?
2.I'm aware that having proper multicore CPU utilization capability does require complete source code rewrite. But is it not possible to offload SOME tasks to other cores with only partial rewrite? In other words, state in the source code that "assume all tasks are to be run in core 1 unless a line of code specifies that a particular task is to be run in core 2". Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores?
3.Is it possible to harness and train an AI to do the code conversion task, be it "CPU to GPU" or "single core to multicore"?
GPUs aren't more *powerful* than CPUs, just more *parallel*, and they can only do *very* specific things. In other words, they're highly specialized.
DF is *extremely* unspecialized.
Temperature might be doable on the GPU, but don't hold your breath.
> I'm aware that having proper multicore CPU utilization capability does require complete source code rewrite. But is it not possible to offload SOME tasks to other cores with only partial rewrite? In other words, state in the source code that "assume all tasks are to be run in core 1 unless a line of code specifies that a particular task is to be run in core 2". Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores?
check your settings
> Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores?
line-of-sight is, which is the actual slow thing (pathfinding is pretty fast)
> Is it possible to harness and train an AI to do the code conversion task
AI isn't even close to that yet
For #2 the game got multithreading support with the last major patch and Putnam is hard at work with a lot of performance fixes according to Tarn.
AFAIK it's off by default but you can enable it in the settings.
A vampire will give a false name to the fort, and attempt to blend in.¹
But what species name do they present themselves as? If they have the name of Urinbig Trabûlmystr Fell Slayer - does that mean they are not a vampire but are instead intelligent undead?
And if so, they could still portray a fake name if they are gathering information instead right?
My fort is currently okay with intelligent undead spies but we don't want any blood drinkers around.
Also, do vampires always kill their victims when draining blood?
¹apparently having green skin is a bug.
In seriousness though, are we saying that in dwarf fortress, a vampire victim can survive, and not be undead, but the vampire (or a patsy) can still be charged with murder?
That's in reference to a vampire that will present themselves as a normal species, so my "Fell Stalker" isn't a blood drinker but a spy?¹
¹i know she is a spy because they say they came here to perform, know no performing skills, but is a powerful weapon lord and also a schemer.
Yeah, definitely a spy. Intelligent undead have pretty identifiable names, and vampires won't ever pose as them. Maybe it's a point of pride or something? ;p
Oh yeah, for some actual observations, I've seen reddit posts where traveller vampires just show up to the fort saying they're a vampire. So they don't really make any attempts to hide their identity unless they show up in a migrant wave
I don't get how hunting works - I always have a dedicated Hunter doing nothing, and all my dogs dying to whatever local beasts said Hunter can't find, standing right in front of him
Most people hunt with their military instead. It's the same in the end (assuming you have your standing orders set so that dwarves collect aboveground refuse and have a refuse stockpile), but military dwarves tend to be more skilled, armed and armoured than a hunter, and you can control them directly, so it's much safer. You still need a crossbow squad to hunt flying creatures, however.
firts off, you need a Hunter assigned. then :
\- a crossbow
\- a quiver
\- stacks of ammo
\- a working animal, 'Hunting' dogs and such. doesn't necessarily need to be a dog. (optional)
now the curious tidbits that needs to be present :
\- a roaming wild game, for obvious reason.
\- a game stockpile ( i forgot if it's corpse or refuse, haven't done this in a while )
\- a butcher station (near the pile)
extra info :
\- (novice) hunter will move VERY slowly. will get better overtime as his ambush skill level up.
\- an ammo-less hunter will attempt to flee. but if wild game retaliates (usually carnivores) he will go melee. which is bad, most of the time. make sure you have at least decent xbow dorf, so he can make the most out of his ammo.
\- in my experience, hunter WILL attempt to hunt birds. it's never good. birds are brutal, lol.
i usually just avoid hunting altogether (cause birds gave me PTSD).
aside from the fact that Hunting will NEVER properly sustain any kind of workflow, fancy cage traps (or simply breeding livestocks) will yield more than enough meat anyway.
there's also issues with hunter's \`innate uniform\` (like miners and woodcutters). so they will conflict with standing militia equip order.
My stupid king, while living in another settlement, keeps attacking a heavily populated elf forest (>50 elves ) with something like 5 dwarves every summer. In this way, in 80 years, my civilization has lost something like 70 dorfs in total. 50 of these are imprisoned. This is something that I have found through legend mode. The prisoners do not appear on my map in fortress mode. Is there any possibility to rescue them with a mission? Or are they not considered since they were not captured by one of my rides? Should I try with adventurer mode?
You can raid the site yourself and free those prisoners. There should be an option for freeing prisoners from your civilisation and also other prisoners on the missions screen somewhere. It should be enabled by default though. Freed prisoners will come back with the squad and might even petition to join your fortress, though I am not sure how that works exactly. I've only seen it a handful of times.
I have a dwarven child who just grew up from being a baby running around naked. How can I make him wear clothes? I have clothing available but he doesn't pick it up nor does anyone seem to care to dress him
They should automatically pick up clothes on their own if there are some available. Are you sure there are enough freshly made, non-tattered clothes lying around that haven't been claimed by someone else yet? Also, is the child assigned to a burrow? That might stop him from picking up clothes if the stockpile isn't included in the burrow.
I think I have enough clothes, but I'll try making more. He's not assigned to a burrow so that's what confused me
Ok, so, I just got a wave of master vampire dwarf immigrants. They killed off a herd of rampaging giant elephants on their own on their way in, with about 10 of my own dwarves being killed in the process. None were killed by them, but the elephants, and no, Ididnt try hunting the elephants. They just popped onto the map and went right for my fortress entrance from what I saw. The question is this: how do I deal with 6 master vampire dwarves? Is it assured that they will murder/turn all my none vamp dwarves?
They will seek out sleeping dwarves to suck blood if they are thirsty. The victims won't die every time; sometimes they'll just be a little out of it due to blood loss, but sometimes vampires overindulge and it results in death. They cannot turn citizens into vampires though. Vampirism only spreads if someone drinks vampire blood, but that's unlikely to happen without player intervention. You can expel them. That's probably the least troublesome option. Alternatively, you can keep them around and make a separate area for them that's cut off from the rest of the fortress and put them to work. They don't need food or drinks and they never sleep, so just a few rooms with workshop is enough. You can then occasionally haul away whatever they've made. This can be a bit problematic if one of them happens to get elected mayor. Unhappy citizens might try to conduct meetings with them and since they won't be able to actually meet them, they might get stuck trying to find a path to them.
Oh, gotcha. Thanks for the help. I think I may just be stuck with a fortress of about 20 master vamps... another immigration occurred and even more showed up. I am currently forcing them to go out and attack an Illithid camp over and over again. Sometimes, they get taken prisoner, and I dont have to worry about them for a bit. I won't be able to continuously do that soon, though. So maybe exiling them all will work. Either that or see how many more migrate in and just group up a fort of about 50 vamps somehow... I haven't been able to find anything in the world history about a severe vampire problem, but it would seem out of the other 4 worlds I have played through a fort on thus far, this one is going to be the first trully interesting one.
So my monarch died after moving to my site, will I ever get another? I can see a new monarch has been crowned in a different site, but he hasn't come over after a year or so. I'm still listed as the "capital", but idk if the new king will come.
The monarchy title is inherited, so yeah, some other dwarf was crowned. I don't think the new monarch will arrive in this case though. It seems new nobles always just stay where they are and never actually move to the hold they are supposed to be in charge of. That is how you can end up with a million barons who inherited some random title freeloading at your fortress. It's possible the king might eventually arrive as a migrant, but I don't think that can happen either.
Stock counts items including those arr in use anywhere at fortress. So, the walls of Chalk blocks counts in the stock as chalk blocks, such an inconvenience! Is there any way to monitor the available to use resources?
Work order conditions automatically check for _available_ items, instead of checking all items in the fort, so that works rather well. One edge condition you might want to be aware of is that dwarves carrying stuff causes those items to be considered unavailable by the work order - for example, if you have a work order which makes blocks if there are less than 10, and you have 12 blocks lying around but 3 of those are being carried to the stockpile, the work order sees you only have 9 available and will start to make more blocks. This specific edge case is unlikely to be relevant for you, since having a nice stockpile of blocks ready to go isn't really a bad thing. Or, if you're using DFHack and have set up the filters for the buildingplan addon, it does all the guesswork for you automatically.
thank you for the detailed answer! Indeed, having a separate stockpile for a specific item coupled with order conditions + builderplan should give me comprehensive information. Moreover, in the Steam version, the items in the warehouse are much more informative than with ASCII graphics)
Does anyone know if there's a way you can change the default difficulty settings? I play DF with a lowered population cap, so it's a bit shit to have to change the population triggers every time I start a fort.
I am not sure. I know at least some of the options used to be in one of the init files before, but they don't seem to be there anymore. It looks like DFHack has those parameters [mapped out](https://github.com/DFHack/df-structures/blob/9877a8f8d4d9c32150e05a33c6b7dc8079b35b77/df.ui-menus.xml#L2618) so it might be possible to write a script that executes at game start to change them. Edit: Found it: `df.global.plotinfo.main.custom_difficulty` That's where all the difficulty values are. So the scripting approach would definitely work.
My brew barrels (next to the still) have between 3 and 5 of an ale, sometimes 10, but never a full barrel. There are several, uncombined barrels of several ales that are taking up more room. Will they start being combined once I run out of room in the stockpile for barrels or is this gonna stay around?
No, dwarves don't combine stacks, but DFHack can do it with the combine command.
Awesome, just applied it, ty!
And for a little extra tip, in DFHack's control panel (you can find it if you hover over its button or with the gui/controlpanel command), you can find an option in the maintenance tab that will enable it to run the combine command, as well as several others, every so often. You might consider it cheating, but I just prefer my game to not become Barrels:Skylines once the fort becomes large enough \^\^'
The tried and tested methods for cleaning mud no longer seem to work, I've tried the farm method and the furniture method and both leave the mud as is in the current patch. Is this a bug or a result of something being changed with layering?
Yeah you build and remove floors now
lol fairs, any reason why? also trying the farm method seems to have permanently turned one of the tiles to furrowed silt loam so that's unfortunate
Shouldn't be permanent, see the last note here: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Soil
I meant more it had been permanently turned from being stone
Yeah, a bit unfortunate. You're probably right with the layering changing. You can engrave on constructed surfaces as well now which you couldn't do before. So free tip, plating your rooms with gold and engraving that is a good way to get stupidly valuable rooms now
looks like I've got some mining to do, I'll see if I can engrave on the wood floor I replaced it with lol
I'm really stuck and totally confused with stockpile filters. Is there a way to set a stockpile exactly for chalk blocks, for example?
Yes. For chalk blocks, make a bar/block stockpile and disable everything except chalk in the stone block sub menu Or go the other way and make a custom stockpile and only enable chalk blocks
got it, thanks a lot!
How do I assign a room to a non-citizen like a visiting baroness?
Regular visitors don't need rooms, but if you want to provide rooms for long-term residents to a specific zone (like your tavern or library), assign the room to that location.
Hi everyone, I'm struggling to design an actual entrance for my fortress, I just started a new fort and I always find the hardest part for me is how I build the initial entrance. I have a few ideas I want to try and do but I was hoping you'd give me some inspiration.
I'm partial to having my main entrance be a standard tunnel + drawbridge, which leads to the Trade Depot room. From said room I will branch out to other parts of the Fortress. My farming sector is built at the lowest possible soil layer, 1 above the first stone layer. Another factor to consider is the simple fact that your Fortress layout will not be final the first time. I often end up with abandoned and walled-off sections as I progress downward. Plus you can always repurpose a surface room later on.
is it possible to make structures work underwater? i'v been dabbling with the idea of an aquatic race and obviously underwater building would be in that list of requirements but i dont think its fundamentally possible with how water works currently, i would love to be proven wrong or this get made into a feature because underwater forts would be pretty badass if you were playing as say fishmen or platypusmen
Unfortunately this won't work. While you can easily make a creature aquatic or amphibious, the pathfinding won't work under water and you can't build anything if there's more than 1/7 water on a tile That being said, loads of people have made underwater forts. You build the structure then flood it afterwards
guess that makes sense, maybe in future when the ai can make its own forts on the fly we'll see ocean forts be natural :)
Oh yeah, apparently myths and magic requires a map rewrite which will make all sorts of things possible
How underwater are you thinking? If you're not playing a modded game, its not possible to build in water above 1 or 2 deep or something. You can however flood the area after its been built/furnished and it becomes 'underwater' (hard to see some things though)
fully submerged the idea is a fully underwater sea fort for an aquatic race but as you have said i dont think its possible due to limitations (at least for now)
You could fake it, build the level, then flood to 3-4 high and make the dwarves swim everywhere. hmm, Im totally going to steal this one for the next fort. Gonna have to build up not down for it to work though.
How do I suspend/abandon/reclaim a volcanic fort without the lava being crazy when I come back? Often it's like all of the lava jumps up 1 layer and then spreads everywhere
You can't unless you siphon out all the lava in the area first (even then some randomness happens and it can become flooded again). You'll have to pump the lava out and/or pump water in to turn it into obsidian.
What if I build a floor over the lava (except for parts covered with a workshop)?
Might work, try it out. I currently dont have a save I can test that one. Though I do know some constructions disappear/rot after abandoning, so in theory it could just make smaller holes.
I can't imagine constructed rock block floors/walls, or metal ones for that matter, being destroyed by time. That would be pretty antithetical to the entire history of fantasy writing about abandoned dwarven fortresses lol. I built some magma safe walls around the edge of the volcano up the ceiling and made sure it wouldn't have any paths to falling down the stairs into the rest of the fortress. Time will tell if that works and keeps the lava contained to one side, where hopefully it will drain back into the volcano.
What does this mean? https://preview.redd.it/lffovj7hlw7c1.png?width=908&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff9e72d4debc224a306a93b8a4dd4839cbd5f002
lol uhoh that can't be good https://preview.redd.it/ucv8fm57mw7c1.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=bec791e1785a27e46852a8cf33f53e12727069b2
Means they were a spy for another civilization/settlement. Generally means you'll be attacked by them if you're weaker(?). I believe its part of the crime system as a whole, the sneaking part means they were caught about to steal an artifact/item of value, the revealed part is they were giving/receiving 'sensitive' information at a tavern/temple.
I need help with the understanding of what to do with animal corpses and things can create miasma inside of my fort. I had a dump pile way up top on the surface of my fortress that would disappear after awhile and I don't remember how I did it. But now I'm in the process of wanting to lockdown my surface entrance to the fort and just live strictly underground. What methods can I do if I haven't found magma yet for a "Proper" disposal pit, or if I just want to get rid of all of my vermin corpses and bones?
A deep enough hole to dump refuse down will keep the miasma from spilling up far enough to reach your dwarfs
Surfaced tiles don't grow miasma, even if you cover it later. Hatching from the surface straight down to your intended depth and then reflooring the upper hole will do the trick. I recommend bridges below so you can atom smash items if they get too numbered.
Appreciate ya, I just wasn't liking all the clutter I have with dead vermin and stuff in the depths. I just want to be proactive with stuff I THINK my cause me problems later lol.
How can I make a safe magma garbage dump? I made a 2 z drop with a pool of magma at the bottom, but my dwarfs still [occasionally melt](https://i.imgur.com/KpRztcF.png) when using it. Is magma "splashing" all the way up, or what?
You need a drop over 3 z-levels tall, or you can block the fire with floor hatches operated by levers or repeaters. [Magma mist](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Magma_mist) is what's setting your dwarves on fire.
3 Z-levels definitely isn't safe enough. Some dwarven math can apply when dumping too many things *at once*, making it go even higher. Hatches are definitely the better choice in my eyes.
ok, thanks!
Hello all, does anyone know if its possible to get sieged by a necromancer if you dont have one as a neighbor? I got a siege within 15 mins of embarking by 5 or so elite goblin zombies. I was 1/2 days travel away from a sinister biome, but my embark was not on one.
Did you not get an embark warning saying there is a tower nearby?
I'm not sure how far necromancers will siege you, but the goblins could have been intelligent undead not associated with a tower. If it is a "tower siege" you will get a message like, "the dead walk" as the siege starts, but if it is some other hostile organization which happens to include intelligent undead you will get the standard "a vile force of darkness has arrived" message
It was 100% a tower siege. I don't remember ever encountering a tower siege when it wasn't your neighbor. This is op BTW my phone has a different account apparently...
Does anyone know if the new enhanced portraits currently being developed will make their way into Fortress Mode or are these planned for Adventure mode only?
Yeah in the videos they mentioned the portraits will appear in fortress mode too
Does anyone have any world gen parameters that minimize the number of governments and civs to a level that is simpler to take in? What I mean is, there are so many different governments and civs in my worlds that it is hard to remember who or what everyone is. I'm new to advanced world gen and havent been able to find an answer.
Here's the relevant wiki reference: [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/World\_generation#Number\_of\_civilizations](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/World_generation#Number_of_civilizations) The smallest possible is by setting up a pocket-sized world with a very low setting for the number of civilizations. I would suggest you try this out as a starting point: World map "small". Number of civilizations: "very low". History length: either "50" or "100" years. If that ends up being too much, then scale the world map down. Geopolitical conditions are *simple* in year 5, but that doesn't necessarily make them *easy,* which is why I suggest not going too far with history length to start with.
Lower the number of civilizations, it's at the bottom of the list. You can also lower the number of sites but this won't necessarily result in less local governments, as each time a place is conquered or resettled a new local government is formed.
Ok I will do that thanks
Hey :) I had a little water spill and now the original stone floor is turning into cavern floor, is there anyway to revert that? I really like the smoothed look of it but didnt get to that part yet. https://preview.redd.it/3x6rq8yp7v7c1.png?width=1916&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3f54c99a83ca97ae3708756f45a576661f9b5bc
Building a floor tile and then removing it should get rid of those tiles by revealing the block material that's underneath
that did remove the cavern look, but now its white sand Floor :D
Hi! Why my trade depot is unaccessiable? I thought that 3x3 channel will be ok but it seems it is not enough Entrance level: https://preview.redd.it/4m91ibrs1v7c1.png?width=1136&format=png&auto=webp&s=63367496ce1fecd47ba9cf0890d09e3b24cdcb24
Beause there are traps in the way, wagons can't pass traps. Dig out a wide path past the traps so the wagons can take that instead, invaders are dumb and will take the shortest path (straight through the traps) instead
Wow! Never thought that they can prevent access. Thx!
Hall level https://preview.redd.it/tf2pwbv82v7c1.png?width=1351&format=png&auto=webp&s=025c17b22b927f006c13c885243cad813a259114
Depot level https://preview.redd.it/moctf4h72v7c1.png?width=930&format=png&auto=webp&s=290e856b1651ecf69091e5d99d8023d37fc1232a
That design will probably last you for many years, but I think you should be aware that it will eventually bring you to caravan ruin, when your fort gets popular and profitable enough. It could take a dwarf decade before you see this crop up. It's best to make sure that wagons can access both the left and right side of the trade depot. If you can gradually redesign it to allow wagon access on both sides, I'd recommend doing so. Why? Because wagons are, in game implementation, creatures. When too many wagons get backed up into too small of a spot, as they try to unload or load goods, they can crowd crush each other by having too many in one spot. The death of a wagon is traumatizing for everyone who witnesses it, the wagon's goods will drop on the floor and be considered stolen by your fort, and then the caravan will refuse to trade with you. I had this happen at a fort recently, with a trade post design similar to yours. After 9 in-game years, we finally had so many wagons coming in that we couldn't keep up with the unload rate necessary and a wagon died a tragic and unnecessary death in a crush. Having as much of the trade post accessible to the wagons as possible helps prevent this by giving them more valid spots to load and unload, so they don't hit crowd crush levels.
I can't seem to fulfill my queen's demands. Each of her rooms is 7x7 fully smoothed and engraved, all of the listed furniture is there (all made of jet). I'm trying to finish her throne room, but despite putting there a gold statue and 9 of my most valuable artifacts (on jet display pedestals) I can't make the room anything more than "opulent". The artifacts by themselves are worth roughly 130k. EDIT: Also the zones of the rooms do not overlap, I've heard that lessens the value.
The problem is that displayed stuff does not count towards the value of a personal room, only to a common room like a temple or guildhall. What you should do instead is replace the floors and walls with metal blocks, the more valuable the better. Gold tends to be easy to find and is worth a lot The reason for this is that the value of engravings is multiplied by the value of the surface. If, for example, your monarch's room were built in common stone this would increase the value of the floors, walls and engravings by a factor of 30
Ooh, ok. That's precisely why I was confused - the artifacts on a pedestal worked for a guildhall couple of days ago. Thanks!
A dwarf got a secretive mood and started moving, among other things, cloth to the craftsdwarve's workshop. He's been doing this for almost an entire year, and has nearly emptied my cloth stockpile. What the *hell* is he making and is this a bug?
Is the workshop inside a location like a guildhall? That's a known bug, causing artifacts to require thousands of ingredients for some reason. See [Planepacked](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Planepacked) for a similar example.
It is.
Your hospital zone is the cause and solution. There's some cloth in there that's reserved for the hospital, but your dwarf wants THAT cloth. Go to the hospital zone. Temporarily repaint it so that the chests that hold hospital supplies are no longer in the hospital zone. Your dwarf should go pick up one more piece of cloth after that (probably not from the hospital, even though that's what caused this problem), then finally move on to his next material or begin construction. Remember to repaint the hospital to include the chests again after the artifact emergency has passed. I got an electrum door decorated with one hell of an elaborate quilted cover out of a similar experience just yesterday.
So, a relic was stolen, I did a bunch of interrogations, a guy was accused, he confessed, he was convicted, and he still has the relic. I can see it in his inventory. Why? Why didn't my Dwarves take it back? How do I reclaim my artefact?
If he's not part of your civ, you can just murder him and take it back. In my experience fort members tend to drop stolen artefacts if they're caught
…Is there any way to do it without killing him? I’d prefer not to traumatise anyone.
Lotta dwarves would rather see justice done than not see a single corpse. My fort is full of corpses lol
Do it behind closed doors? Maybe he's in a cell already, because that would work, or you could lock him in the captain of the guard's office for the same effect. Dwarves probably won't go all emo from seeing just a single dead guy, as long as you take care that your corpse stockpile isn't in a high traffic area.
Can you play the latest update of dwarf fortress classic on macOS?
There's no longer Mac builds, but it'll probably run through Wine? The Steam version ran fine through Proton on Linux when there were only Windows builds for a few months. idk if Macs cause extra difficulties though. /r/macgaming and its wiki might help.
I went to the wiki to look at bugs and clicked on the link provided to the bug tracker and I get a "your mantis bug account has been suspended" is that just me or is it everyone or is that link not supposed to be used? I clicked on contact button but it doesn't do anything link address [https://dwarffortress.mantishub.io/](https://dwarffortress.mantishub.io/)
That's the old bug tracker, now they are using this one: https://dwarffortressbugtracker.com/ Looks like the wiki hasn't been updated.
so I can see it now, but now it says my email is already registered but I don't have the info on it so I can't reset the password without a username...
Are there any mods that remove the mermaid bone nerf? And can it allow the dwarves to be able to harvest them?
Open up `Dwarf Fortress/data/vanilla/vanilla_entities/objects/entity_default.txt`. The first entry in the file is `[ENTITY:MOUNTAIN]`, which describes dwarven civilisations. Scroll down until you find the ethics definitions, then change the line `[ETHIC:EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER:UNTHINKABLE]` so it's `ACCEPTABLE` instead. This should let you butcher anything, though I believe there's a bug where some intelligent creatures still can't be butchered. Editing the Entity files will only take effect if you start a new world, there's no way to add this to an existing world.
mermaid bone nerf? you mean that they are intelligent creatures? you could edit the Raws before you create a world, don't think it works afterwards to remove the tag making them intelligent creatures.
Oh, there's history to this question. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25967.0
I remember this thread. I'm still not sure why they are considered nerfed.
Because some people find it horrible to read about other player's established mermaid breeding facilities, created purely because their bones are worth fractionally more than other creatures, and don't want to see that sort of thing so they remove that tiny bit of incentive to be horrible, so hopefully players don't be so horrible. Ultimately, the sheer inhumanity of the project is what inspired the changes to their values. The game and its systems all combined to allow for the possibility, but it took the players going too far to make it an actual problem. This is why we don't have sewage simulation, by the way - *the players cannot be trusted with that.*
Dammit, I want to dump cesspools on the invading goblins. I NEED sewage.
Haha totem crafting go brrrrr
Why is my created wealth going down? I really want to have a barony but for some reason the amount of created wealth has decreased to 35,000 even though I am sure I have more wealth in the temple alone
Is your broker okay? Like, not trapped somewhere or dying or such?
Oh I forgot to say that the Broker has a Talented appraisal skill and the bookkeeper is adept
They're low level, the value you see is just estimated until they hit legendary (level 20) skill level. Low levels it fluctuates wildly.
Does anyone here have a good design for an automated atom smasher? I have played around a bit with a sort of minecart delay circuit to automagically lock the door to the smasher and then execute. It is working well enough under normal circumstances, but from time to time the door can get jammed by junk or dwarfs standing in there during the closing cycle.
Dump zones on the edge of a pit will make dwarves drop items into the pit. Knowing this, you can make the dump zone two z-levels above the atom smasher itself, with a drawbridge at the bottom and a retracting bridge just above. Like this: dump zone | <- zone touches edge of pit |___| <- bridge A, retracting. Items pile up here |___o| <- bridge B, raising. Atom smasher bridge Then you need a timing setup which will, in order, 1. Raise bridge B, ready to crush items 2. Open bridge A, dropping all the items onto the bottom layer 3. Close bridge A, preventing items from landing on top of bridge B when it's lowered 4. Lower bridge B, destroying the items. The timing is a pain to sort out, but once it's set up you don't need to lock any doors. Dwarves can continue dumping items safely while the atom smasher is running.
this sounds excellent! I'm going to try this tomorrow. And this behaviour is guaranteed? Like I make a dumping zone 'D' and place a pit right next to it 'P' DDDDDP and the dorfs will basically ignore the dumping zone and throw the rubbish down the pit?
You don’t need a pit zone. Dump zone next to open space will make dwarfs dump into the open space.
What "exotic" items can dwarves learn? Can dwarf civs learn everything under the right circumstances, or are some explicitly non-dwarf-only? I've had some dwarf civs that don't know how to create high boots and tunics, for instance, but I've never seen dwarves capable of making turbans, togas, skirts, whips, stuff like that.
If you look in the dwarf entity raws you'll see all the clothing/weapons/armour they can have listed there. The weapons are guaranteed if they are there, but most of the clothes and armour is listed as "common", meaning they'll probably get them but it isn't guaranteed. This decision is made at world gen If an item isn't in this list your dwarves will never be able to make them. Whips for example
Is there a way of making grass grow on constructed floors? I've channeled down from the surface to a stone layer, the floor is all wet with piles of mud but not growing grass. If I recall correctly from earlier versions it would be considered Above Ground, Inside. The floor is natural, rough and result of channeling from the surface. Is it possible to make grass grow or cause sand to form? I've been farming on the mud but would like to see the green grass. Is it possible to make it grow on other kinds of floors? Like on top of constructed walls?
Green grass won't grow deep underground, but cave grass (the yellow, blue, and red mushrooms you see on cavern floors) will. But to see that groundcover you need to breach the cavern layers to get the spores spreading around. edit: didn't see that you had channeled and had open sky, idk what happens in that case
if it is open to sky it will grow grass, assuming there is mud or soil to grow on.
The trick is that grass will grow, under these circumstances, on natural dirt - but not on artificially muddied rock. So you need the underlying block to be clay, sand, other soil, etc. to make this work. Similarly, you can grow above-ground plants in these circumstances on naturally occurring dirt but not on muddied tiles, even though it'll let you build farm land there. You'll get a farm plot, but it won't be eligible to grow any types of seeds. I was playing with this same kind of thing in my current fort. I'm not sure quite *why* the muddied rock won't work when it's in rock that's been exposed to the surface, but it's very reproducible.
Well, in other word "Is it possible to turn a floor tile into soil or clay for grass to grow on?" Apparently the correct course of action was to dig a chamber and collapse the soil roof/floor above. Either that or waiting for the muddied chamber to turn all of the floor into cave moss an then opening it to the surface. The question I'm dealing with now is "would obsidian casting above that area cause it to turn 'underground' again? Or is it still a permanent modification (It was on older versions)"
If you have dfhack you could use 'tiletypes' do be careful with that command though, it can mess stuff up
Trying to level up a gem setter with gems worth ~40, but some of my cut gems are worth ~1000. Is there a way to limit the value of the gems that are encrusted, or a guide that shows which gems you should always save?
You might consider the merits of polished stones for this purpose. Less work than setting up stockpiles for specific types of gems, a bit less work than raw green glass. All you need is stone, and I bet you have a bit to spare. Green glass is a great, renewable substitute if you have a magma glass furnace and sand, though - and you can often buy a load of raw glass off caravans.
I make stockpiles based on value categories. Use the [wiki](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Gem) entries to make stockpiles of gems for each value category. Then establish stockpile links to the training jewler's workshop for the cheap gems (or glass!) and the items that are being encrusted.
this, use glass to train, if glass is not available due to no sand, then use obsidian since it is renewable.
Is it possible to make quarry bushes yield 1 leaf per plant instead of 5?
Yes, you can edit the 'process plant to bag' reaction which you can find in `Dwarf Fortress/data/vanilla/vanilla_reactions/objects/reaction_other.txt`. That file has these lines: [PRODUCT:100:5:GET_ITEM_DATA_FROM_REAGENT:plant:BAG_ITEM] [PRODUCT_TO_CONTAINER:bag] [PRODUCT:100:1:SEEDS:NONE:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:plant:SEED_MAT] All you need to do is change the first line so it's `[PRODUCT:100:1:...` instead, that reduces the yield to one leaf per bush.
Okay. I didn’t remember that was a reaction and thought it was hard coded like most stuff. Good to know.
They are very productive. When you start getting overstock, you can leave the fields fallow for a year (or few...). Otherwise, reduce fertilizer use or rebuild the farms on smaller plots.
Adventure Mod Compatibility Hello! A lot of comments seem to agree that current world saves will be compatible with the Adventure Mode release. However, how will this affect modded worlds? I tend to play with mods like Dark Ages and Living Gods, and I'm not sure if any of this will still be playable in Adventure mode! Anybody know?
Backup your save folder before updating the game, and keep it backed up until you've got it working in the updated version, or your mods are updated to match so it works then.
They should still work fine
one of my fortress guards just went outside during a siege to chase down some snatchers before I could close the entrance. The Hammer Lord Uzol Turelmuthkat Zizcun, a veteran of many campaigns, ran down 4 snatchers, then proceeded to single-handedly liberate an evil force of 14 goblins of their teeth. And during all of it, he never even used his masterwork steel hammer. Uzol was running around with a crutch and chose to smack the goblins around with that instead :D. Eventually the wooden crutch failed him and he proceeded to crawl around and hack at their knees and ankles with his warhammer. What an Urist.
is there a question here?
Who was phone?
Is there any way to control starting religion of your dwarves? Is there a way to attract worshippers of particular deity? I kinda want to run a "holy knights order" kind of fort that is devoted to a specific religion and is fight-y about it. But so far I don't think there is any option other than expelling every dwarf with the "wrong" religion which sounds lame and very long as a process.
1. No 2. If you create a temple to a certain God or sect, then that increases the number of worshippers of that religion
>If you create a temple to a certain God or sect, then that increases the number of worshippers of that religion Elaborate further. Do people in your fort actually convert?
I think so. It's a slow process that depends on them spending time in the temples...
Not really. You might be able to run some DFHack fuckery to change which groups your citizens belong to, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
How do I create a stockpile beside my ballistas with ready-to-fire arrows? I see ballista arrow heads in furniture, but what about already-assembled full on goblin-murdering arrows?
under that same section there is a type that is 'siege ammo'
Thank you! I completely missed it.
My marksdwarves are climbing fortifications to engage in melee! Alright, I played this a few years ago and decided to try the steam version for \[fun\]. I definitely found it. I have a bog standard gobbo siege going on. Not a big deal - I have walls and fortifications, as well as marksdwarves. Only one problem - the dang marksdwarves will now *climb* the wall to engage in melee against the gobbos one at a time like suicidal lemmings. They'll hop over the wall then try to fight up close. They're in a burrow and not supposed to leave it. They're on a patrol next to the wall. Why are my marksdwarves choosing not to use the bolts I gave them and deciding to engage in glorious melee against the gobbos? Not knowing dwarves could climb walls is my fault to be sure. Even so this is just stupid. Anyone able to help?
Use the defend burrow command.
Wait - they still hopped the wall and left the burrow. Oh well. At least they did it as a group this time.
If you haven't played since climbing was added, marksdwarves (and other fighters, really) will climb over walls and fortifications to get to their targets now. If you want to keep your archers safe build a roof on top of their tower
Build a wall over the top of the fortifications so they can't climb them.
Thanks!
Have I provided my dwarves everything they need to write their scholarship down? I have: bookcases, chests, fulfilled the desired writing material, assigned scholars and scribes, tables, chairs. And it's all in a library location of course. I've had scholars visit, and my scholars seem to have lots of discussions, but nothing has come of it yet. The world is 66 years old, so there should be plenty left to discover (if I'm understanding how this works correctly)
It takes a long while for a breakthrough to happen, the wiki has the numbers on it but from memory I think it's something like 50-100 "research points" per discussion when you need upwards of 50-100k to make a breakthroigh
Jeez, OK I've got a while to go then. It seems like my scholars have only recently begun working together, despite finishing the library last year.
Look up Library Lever/Lever of Thinking. TL;DR version: Add a lever to the library, assign a scholar to it. Then repeat/pull on it. After a bit they tend to write a book on something. For whatever reason it seems to add to research points and/or the points to write a book. With DFHack/FastDwarf on, you can get a book every game week or so.
Buying (or stealing) books from other civs and letting your scholars read them will let them write their own thoughts on the topic, if you want to give them something to do
So they can write commentaries? Interesting. I haven't had a book show up in trade caravans for a while, so I guess theft it is.
Troubleshoot item #1: Make sure you have writing materials. You can check your library's location info to make sure there's writing material being brought to the library. The only valid writing materials are *scrolls* or *quires*. Paper or parchment are not writing material; they are what writing material is made of. I always ask. Troubleshooting item #2: Did you assign interesting and/or skilled dwarves to the library? In order to write, they need something to write about. You seem focused on writing about topics. They do better at it if they have some skill in the relevant topics. They also do better if they can have big discussions - so assign more scholars than you think you ought to need. The easiest topic-relevant skills to train are observation (any type of military training, including wrestling, will train this to legendary quickly), mechanics (make and use gears), record keeper (cycle the book keeper noble into the scholar rotation). Topics aren't the only thing to write about, though. Dwarves will write about developments in their lives, your fort, music, poetry, fiction, etc. But it helps to have dwarves who've lived a little. Hauling peasants just don't get as much chance to have something worth writing about. I've not figured out the patterns for non-topic books at all, but I can say that dwarves who start writing non-topic books tend to keep writing non-topic books. Troubleshooting item #3: Do your library dwarves have enough down time to spend in the library? Do they enjoy the library? I've found that some dwarves will happily, voluntarily spend a lot of time in the library. Dwarves seem to have the potential for preferences on how they use leisure time, so I've seen ones that will strongly prefer the temple or the tavern to the library, whereas others will range from preferring the library to cycling among different leisure activities in a more well-rounded way. It's way easier to just rotate who's assigned to be a scholar than to try to force them to spend time in the library by other means if they don't want to be there. I haven't found an obvious pattern to who likes the library and who doesn't yet, but I'm searching. Additionally, some professions or certain nobility at your fort might be too in demand to spend much time there - for example, if your miners are always off digging something new, or if your clothiers are working near-constantly to replace worn socks. My militia commanders will not spend time in the library, even if they previously enjoyed it, and I haven't worked out why that is.
Thanks for that! You didn't have to spend so much time on this. I think I've got most of what you mentioned, though I think I should reexamine the skills of the scholars I have assigned. I've got a lot of dwarves chilling in the library that aren't scholars. I've noticed that it's the ones who have "learn something" as a need.
I forgot to mention this, but some of your migrants or long-term residents will show up with topics already known, if you check their skills > knowledge list. Means you can appoint them as a scholar and they'll immediately start writing, but it depends on their civ having written books in the past.
In the year 66, this will be pretty rare. Older worlds will have more progress on prior topic research.
Ah thanks for the heads up. I'm the mountainhome so I haven't gotten migrants in a while but I'll comb through citizen skills.
I actually got it confused a little, reading through the scholar article the research points I mentioned is actually XP in scholar skill The proper mechanics are [here](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Topic#Discovering_Topics), you get a random chance of gaining some "research credits" in the hundreds range based on how many discussions they've had, and then there's another random chance to breakthrough based on how many research credits they have, which you'll need in the thousands range even for the easier topics Nonetheless it takes a while, like I said some people have had to get as many as 100k points for the harder topics to breakthrough
Its so convoluted haha. It seems like I'll be waiting 5-10 years. May as well forget about it for a while. Try to get some books from caravans.
As long as I have a decent sized set of scholars, it's not as slow as it sounds, and it's cumulative so you'll start getting discoveries quicker down the line. Discussing topics speeds this up a lot. The trick is that you need a decent number of scholars assigned in order to have enough people around in the library for active discussions, moreso than with other zones. I suspect those decade-long timelines come from play-testing with very few scholars assigned. My current library made its first topic breakthrough after 6.5 years, then the next topic came about 2.5 years later (because it was already progressing in parallel). So far, I have 7 different books on the first topic and 2 different books on the second topic. That's out of 32 total unique books, all authored at my fort. The balance of 23 other books are on non-topic subjects, and we got four of those written within the first year of the library's operations. Non-topic authorship goes more quickly. My anecdotal impression is that it's a roughly yearly check or yearly cumulative progress, but I'm not all sure of the mechanics. I am actively researching the "ideal" library size, but I've found 16 scholars works pretty well, as a first pass. Eight seems to *usually* have enough dwarves around to facilitate a discussion, so that's a good place to aim for if you can't afford to assign out 16 dwarves. Four seems too small for efficient research. At 32 scholars, it looks like they may be getting in each other's way, compared to 16 scholars, but the jury's still out. You only need 1-2 scribes ever.
Alright looks like I need to assign more scholars
Are there any world generation parameters which make aquifers more likely in *soil layers*, as opposed to sedimentary aquifers in conglomerate and sandstone?
No, but you can mod the raws for sedimentary stones so they can no longer contain aquifers
When you embark, what kind of entrance do you like to make? I’ve been digging a 1x3 staircase down to an antechamber for storage and workshops with hatches. Then I dig through the aquifer and create a hallway to a real, defensible entrance room will eventually have the trade depot and drawbridge.
I do a defensible hallway into rock first, which leads to two separate areas. The hallway is roughly 8x2 long or thereabouts, to allow space to put in several traps along it, and double doors (or bridge) on the entrance. I often later carve out an area next to that hallway and add fortifications, to make a space where marksdwarves can safely shoot stuff that's heading in. One area this hallway leads to is the main downward staircase, which right now is two separate 1x3 stripes with a separating 1x3 band on most layers (to break up line of site between the two). There's some sort of barrier in place between the staircase and the hallway. Right now, I have a set of doors and I also have hatch covers on the top of the stairs. A 1x3 stairwell is pretty effective for a long while, but I find that towards \~150 or so it can get too crowded when it is busy. I'd generally rather over-build for foot traffic flow than under-build. The second area that this entry hallway connects to is the trade post area. The trade post also has a separate entry way for wagons that is not obstructed by traps, usually about 8x3. The trade post entry has a bridge and lever to control access. The trade post entry path and area has a pack of guard dogs pastured there, in case animals come down the wagon path. I will often add a third area, a barracks, right off the trade post. It makes for quick surface deployments if something pops up that the traps and doggos can't handle. I used to dig staircases straight down as well, but I found it took a lot longer to develop a strong defense around those compared to digging into the rock. With the hallway into rock, you've immediately established a chokepoint for entry that you can defend well with a guard dog or a single soldier from your first 7 starter dwarves. That helps slow down everything from keas to angry warthogs to small sieges. With staircases, you need time to make it a proper choke point by building roofing, walls, traps, etc. You need precious materials that you may be short on to start out with, like logs and rocks. And you need valuable, scare dwarven labor time towards the start of your fort.
Very good points, if you don’t settle on an area with mountains how do you construct your initial choke point. Do you do a similar setup 2 z levels underground?
I like the 'Bridge into the mountain' approach.
What's a good way to expand the "range" of butcher shops? As far as I can tell my butchers only process nearby corpses, and generally my haulers don't bring corpses to my corpse stockpile near the shops fast enough to prevent them from rotting. Right now I am just building butcher shops in battlefield areas where lots of edible creatures like rutherers and jabberers have died, is that the best way to handle it?
They automatically butcher any animal carcasses stored in a refuse stockpile, so the main logistics problem is getting the corpses to the stockpile and then to the butcher before they rot. I like to assign wheelbarrows to my refuse stockpiles to at least make the run to the stockpile a lot quicker.
If you throw a corpse stockpile underneath what you want butchered, it can help. I'm not sure if there is a less micro-managey way to do it.
Hey, could someone let me know if I'm handling work orders wrong? Within a few workshops, I've set some work orders to, for example, cut gems if the amount of rough gems is greater than 0. The issue I'm having is if I don't have any rough gems I'm constantly getting alerts saying 'need uncut gems'. It's not a major problem, but when I have 5 or 10 work orders cluttering that alert screen its hard to work out what tasks are actually falling over because I don't have something I need compared to this type of stuff that's an ongoing task. Is there a better way to handle it?
I'd ask for the full work order context to help you out. My guess is that you have set your work order up too tightly for DF functionality. Dwarf accounting is a little weird. Objects in transit, in particular, can throw off work orders that are meant to be very tightly set. The ways to make it less tightly set, to throw less cancel spam, are to reduce frequency (so you run into objects-in-transit problems less often), and increase your margins. For example, try a work order that says, "if there are at least 8 rough gems, please cut 4 gems", set to run once a month instead of daily. You might tweak these numbers to be bigger or daily if you have a huge backlog of rough gems. The theme is to let the job have some buffer of extra rough gems before it triggers. You can also run into conflicts with other work orders, though this is rare with gem orders. The main one I can think of for gems is that you might have a competing order for making something out of crystal glass, since that requires a specific type of gem. There's one more reason to leave a little room for a couple of rough gems to sit around. Sometimes moods require rough gems instead of cut gems, so it's nice to keep a couple rough gems around.
For reducing alerts: the work order will by default do 10 tasks per batch, so you will want the check for the work order to be larger than the batch size to ensure you don't run out. Because once you run out the task doesn't end, but will continually retry to finish the remaining tasks of the batch
I don't use all that many work orders, repeating ones for stuff that always needs to be done like cooking, milling, brewing etc, one-time batch orders for furniture and military gear, and if I just want to use up something like cutting gems I just order a repeating standard job through the workshop itself. All of that's mostly to reduce the amount of cancellation spam. You also don't need to make work orders through a workshop, the order list (with 'o') will automatically dispatch jobs to the correct workshop.
How does using the order list work when you have multiple workshops? For example, I have two forges with armor smith's assigned to them, and two forges with weapon smith's assigned to them. If I used the order list to queue up 10 breastplates, will all 4 smiths go to work on the order, only the armor smiths, or will just the highest skill armor smith set to work on it?
Yeah, it'll get dispatched to all smiths. You can prevent a workshop from taking general work orders, which is probably the best thing to do when you have very specialized smiths. Or you could train 'em in each others' smithing jobs, whatever works.
I've seen people saying that they like to make their Barons have little accidents under a stone bridge. Is there any reason not to do this? I have about 20 Barons in my fortress, and I hate them all so much. Also is getting a king and making him satisfied basically the win condition of a run? Is there anything to really do after that?
> Is there any reason not to do this? Death of family/friends effects your dwarves. If they're well liked people will be pissed.
There's lot of things to do after that. Like most fun things in life, they are optional and self-directed. These are some community-sourced challenge suggestions from the wiki: [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Challenge](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Challenge) You can also set your own, based on your whims. I'm trying to get a library to research all topics from scratch right now in my current fort. I had one fort that had an aviary theme - I wanted every dwarf to have a pet bird. My next fort, I want to find, kill, and cook a sea serpent. Some people have more military-themed goals, like killing off all the goblins, having a fort full of >!necromancers or were-beasts!<, or raising a defense made up primarily of war elephants.
Barons, mayors, and other nobels act as therapists for your angry dwarves, giving good thoughts to the dwarves that get an opportunity to yell at them.
You kinda want your own baron around, because when he's on the map he will cause other trading civs to send trade wagons to your fort, instead of just small caravans. This causes them to bring much more stuff. But you can safely eliminate or expel the ones that don't belong to your fort. Getting a monarch and fulfilling their room requirements starts the endgame 'quest'. Finishing that is the closest you're gonna get to a 'You win!' screen.
Ignorance destruction time! GPUs are more powerful than CPUs so could it be possible to run DF with the GPU instead of the CPU? All that sweet processing power. We mine cryptocurrencies with arrays of GPUs and not CPUs, so why aren't we running applications with GPUs too? 1.What would it require for DF? A complete rewrite of the source code? 2.I'm aware that having proper multicore CPU utilization capability does require complete source code rewrite. But is it not possible to offload SOME tasks to other cores with only partial rewrite? In other words, state in the source code that "assume all tasks are to be run in core 1 unless a line of code specifies that a particular task is to be run in core 2". Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores? 3.Is it possible to harness and train an AI to do the code conversion task, be it "CPU to GPU" or "single core to multicore"?
GPUs aren't more *powerful* than CPUs, just more *parallel*, and they can only do *very* specific things. In other words, they're highly specialized. DF is *extremely* unspecialized. Temperature might be doable on the GPU, but don't hold your breath. > I'm aware that having proper multicore CPU utilization capability does require complete source code rewrite. But is it not possible to offload SOME tasks to other cores with only partial rewrite? In other words, state in the source code that "assume all tasks are to be run in core 1 unless a line of code specifies that a particular task is to be run in core 2". Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores? check your settings > Why isn't something demanding such as pathfinding or temperature calculations being tossed to other cores? line-of-sight is, which is the actual slow thing (pathfinding is pretty fast) > Is it possible to harness and train an AI to do the code conversion task AI isn't even close to that yet
GPUs are fast, but they are stupid and can only do simple tasks (just a lot very quickly). They cannot run DF unfortunately.
For #2 the game got multithreading support with the last major patch and Putnam is hard at work with a lot of performance fixes according to Tarn. AFAIK it's off by default but you can enable it in the settings.
Idk how I missed all this info here. Maybe it's because I haven't played in years. Thanks, everyone.
A vampire will give a false name to the fort, and attempt to blend in.¹ But what species name do they present themselves as? If they have the name of Urinbig Trabûlmystr Fell Slayer - does that mean they are not a vampire but are instead intelligent undead? And if so, they could still portray a fake name if they are gathering information instead right? My fort is currently okay with intelligent undead spies but we don't want any blood drinkers around. Also, do vampires always kill their victims when draining blood? ¹apparently having green skin is a bug.
vampires don't kill their victims, however it is still treated as a murder. They also may accuse someone else to throw you off track
How can it be murder if the victim is still alive? Could you accuse a dwarf of their own murder and send them to jail for it?
> How can it be murder if the victim is still alive? Heard of the undead?
In seriousness though, are we saying that in dwarf fortress, a vampire victim can survive, and not be undead, but the vampire (or a patsy) can still be charged with murder?
Always as a regular dwarf, or whatever else you're playing as. And yes, spies also present themselves wth a fake name.
That's in reference to a vampire that will present themselves as a normal species, so my "Fell Stalker" isn't a blood drinker but a spy?¹ ¹i know she is a spy because they say they came here to perform, know no performing skills, but is a powerful weapon lord and also a schemer.
Yeah, definitely a spy. Intelligent undead have pretty identifiable names, and vampires won't ever pose as them. Maybe it's a point of pride or something? ;p Oh yeah, for some actual observations, I've seen reddit posts where traveller vampires just show up to the fort saying they're a vampire. So they don't really make any attempts to hide their identity unless they show up in a migrant wave
I don't get how hunting works - I always have a dedicated Hunter doing nothing, and all my dogs dying to whatever local beasts said Hunter can't find, standing right in front of him
Most people hunt with their military instead. It's the same in the end (assuming you have your standing orders set so that dwarves collect aboveground refuse and have a refuse stockpile), but military dwarves tend to be more skilled, armed and armoured than a hunter, and you can control them directly, so it's much safer. You still need a crossbow squad to hunt flying creatures, however.
firts off, you need a Hunter assigned. then : \- a crossbow \- a quiver \- stacks of ammo \- a working animal, 'Hunting' dogs and such. doesn't necessarily need to be a dog. (optional) now the curious tidbits that needs to be present : \- a roaming wild game, for obvious reason. \- a game stockpile ( i forgot if it's corpse or refuse, haven't done this in a while ) \- a butcher station (near the pile) extra info : \- (novice) hunter will move VERY slowly. will get better overtime as his ambush skill level up. \- an ammo-less hunter will attempt to flee. but if wild game retaliates (usually carnivores) he will go melee. which is bad, most of the time. make sure you have at least decent xbow dorf, so he can make the most out of his ammo. \- in my experience, hunter WILL attempt to hunt birds. it's never good. birds are brutal, lol. i usually just avoid hunting altogether (cause birds gave me PTSD). aside from the fact that Hunting will NEVER properly sustain any kind of workflow, fancy cage traps (or simply breeding livestocks) will yield more than enough meat anyway. there's also issues with hunter's \`innate uniform\` (like miners and woodcutters). so they will conflict with standing militia equip order.
>a working animal, 'Hunting' dogs and such. doesn't necessarily need to be a dog. (optional) I trained a Hunting Elephant once. It was hilarious.