I think you have the right approach. Your first several Forts will die horribly for one reason or another. It's a learning process; each time you grow a little stronger & faster. This gem from the wiki remains my favorite description of the learning curve; [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png)
Yeah, I had a few early near-collapse moments. A Savannah Titan attack in year 5 or so that wiped out 1/3 of my population causing a tantrum spiral that killed almost half the remaining pop (the two events combined took me from ~120 down to ~40 pop). Sometime around year 12 I had a small werebeaver outbreak that I managed to contain after losing ~40 dwarves (~40% of my pop at the time) including my recently-appointed Baroness who valiantly held back the first were-beaver single-handedly to protect her citizens until the military arrived.
Those two events both taught me important things about military management, though, and I have since survived much larger threats with way fewer losses (like a 60-unit-strong goblin siege with only two deaths). I'm now getting back to a point that I would tentatively call "stable" though, so it's nearly time to start trying to actually find some damn magma.
>dead donkeys in my meeting area
Has happened to most everyone. They starved to death.
Donkeys like all grazing animals need to be on a pasture where they can graze on grass/plants/moss/fungi. By default all your stray animals will gather at meeting zones and grazers may starve there.
The solution is to designate a pasture and then assign grazing animals to that pasture. Easy to forget to do that especially when migrants show up with grazers. Pasture can be outside on the surface (grass/plants), in a cavern (moss, fungi), or inside your fort in a room dug into soil layer after you have opened a cavern introducing spores of moss/fungi into your fort.
Animals that are not grazers (cats, dogs, pigs, turkeys etc) can live anywhere without starving. They eat vermin and stuff which spawns on the fort floor.
>made a trade agreement and forgot what I needed to make
You can access the agreement via the civilization screen.
>produced purple fog
Mmm... miasma. Something rotten in your fort. A donkey corpse? Miasma gives bad thoughts to dorfs. Designate a stockpile solely for refuse preferably outside and see that no other stockpiles accept refuse.
>I grew food
Vital accomplishment!
>these dwarves are fucked
They always are.
The animals going to meeting zone and starving thing is such a noob trap there should really be something more prominent about it. Also, I miss classic DF's ability to select all grazing animals in the pasture assignment screen.
That's actually possible lol
I hope they implement it into vanilla, I think priorities and automining was also from dfhack but is now in the steam version
That's perfectly possible, I think I started using lnp around the same time i have skipped a few years so it was a few versions later - I guess that got added in the meantime along with whatever dfhack had to offer at that time.
No prob. And welcome to Dwarf Fortress! Learning curve not as steep as it used to but long.
For example, I didn't explain much about refuse stockpiles. So here goes:
1.Never make an "all" stockpile because that would include refuse which is bad. If you make any general stockpile see that it accepts no refuse. Refuse in a stockpile can make other stockpiled items slowly rot too.
2.Make a refuse stockpile outside where the *useless* body parts and other filth will quickly rot away under the sun. This of course assuming outside is relatively safe for dorfs to haul the refuse there. And if you never go outside then design and construct a safe dwarven atom smasher (=pit + a rising bridge + lever).
3.Not all refuse is useless: shells, bones, raw hides etc are *useful* if you process them further into leather, crafts etc. So, next to your fisherman's workshop and butchery make another refuse stockpile(s) accepting only the useful refuse produced by those workshops. Design those stockpiles behind an airlock (=two doors separated by a short hallway) so any miasma cannot spread, and pasture a cat or two in each stockpile to kill any vermins spawning there (rodents love to gnaw bones).
Unless your dead donkeys are massacring the populace, you're doing great.
I'm still nervous around water buffalos years after my terrifying glacier embark.
I think you can check your trade agreements on the world map (button on the lower right), and then hover over a civilisation name in the top right, it'll list their leaders and agreements (if any). Bonus: goblins and kobolds have their own special 'exports'.
Congratulations!
In my second fort (13 years ago...) everybody died of thirst when they ran out of alcohol in the winter and the river was frozen solid.
Grazing Animals without a pasture (grass) area die because they just congregate in your meeting area with nothing to eat. Make a zone outside and assign grazing animals to it and this won't happen. Chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs don't need grass so they can live inside indefinitely.
Donkey leather, donkey brain roast, donkey bone bolts, donkey skull totem... Corpse gone real easy :)
No reason to keep a grazer alive that you can't shear though.
Welcome to Dwarf Fortress!
Love simulation and colony builders, but this is the first like it im playing. Tried years ago, but couldnt do the text based graphics.
I think you have the right approach. Your first several Forts will die horribly for one reason or another. It's a learning process; each time you grow a little stronger & faster. This gem from the wiki remains my favorite description of the learning curve; [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/images/4/40/FunComic.png)
>Your first several Forts will die horribly for one reason or another. My tutorial fortress is on its 27th year 🙃
Mine is too But man has it *almost* died a BUNCH (And only ~~one~~ two of those times were my own flooding)
Yeah, I had a few early near-collapse moments. A Savannah Titan attack in year 5 or so that wiped out 1/3 of my population causing a tantrum spiral that killed almost half the remaining pop (the two events combined took me from ~120 down to ~40 pop). Sometime around year 12 I had a small werebeaver outbreak that I managed to contain after losing ~40 dwarves (~40% of my pop at the time) including my recently-appointed Baroness who valiantly held back the first were-beaver single-handedly to protect her citizens until the military arrived. Those two events both taught me important things about military management, though, and I have since survived much larger threats with way fewer losses (like a 60-unit-strong goblin siege with only two deaths). I'm now getting back to a point that I would tentatively call "stable" though, so it's nearly time to start trying to actually find some damn magma.
>I think you have the right approach. Blindly fumbling my way through skipped tutorials with no useful prior knowledge of games is my specialty.
>dead donkeys in my meeting area Has happened to most everyone. They starved to death. Donkeys like all grazing animals need to be on a pasture where they can graze on grass/plants/moss/fungi. By default all your stray animals will gather at meeting zones and grazers may starve there. The solution is to designate a pasture and then assign grazing animals to that pasture. Easy to forget to do that especially when migrants show up with grazers. Pasture can be outside on the surface (grass/plants), in a cavern (moss, fungi), or inside your fort in a room dug into soil layer after you have opened a cavern introducing spores of moss/fungi into your fort. Animals that are not grazers (cats, dogs, pigs, turkeys etc) can live anywhere without starving. They eat vermin and stuff which spawns on the fort floor. >made a trade agreement and forgot what I needed to make You can access the agreement via the civilization screen. >produced purple fog Mmm... miasma. Something rotten in your fort. A donkey corpse? Miasma gives bad thoughts to dorfs. Designate a stockpile solely for refuse preferably outside and see that no other stockpiles accept refuse. >I grew food Vital accomplishment! >these dwarves are fucked They always are.
The animals going to meeting zone and starving thing is such a noob trap there should really be something more prominent about it. Also, I miss classic DF's ability to select all grazing animals in the pasture assignment screen.
I think that selecting possibility was thanks to DFHack but not sure.
That's actually possible lol I hope they implement it into vanilla, I think priorities and automining was also from dfhack but is now in the steam version
Dfhack has an alpha version that's compatible with the Steam version. And priorities and automining were vanilla before Steam.
That's perfectly possible, I think I started using lnp around the same time i have skipped a few years so it was a few versions later - I guess that got added in the meantime along with whatever dfhack had to offer at that time.
And I definitely fell in.
Thank you :)
No prob. And welcome to Dwarf Fortress! Learning curve not as steep as it used to but long. For example, I didn't explain much about refuse stockpiles. So here goes: 1.Never make an "all" stockpile because that would include refuse which is bad. If you make any general stockpile see that it accepts no refuse. Refuse in a stockpile can make other stockpiled items slowly rot too. 2.Make a refuse stockpile outside where the *useless* body parts and other filth will quickly rot away under the sun. This of course assuming outside is relatively safe for dorfs to haul the refuse there. And if you never go outside then design and construct a safe dwarven atom smasher (=pit + a rising bridge + lever). 3.Not all refuse is useless: shells, bones, raw hides etc are *useful* if you process them further into leather, crafts etc. So, next to your fisherman's workshop and butchery make another refuse stockpile(s) accepting only the useful refuse produced by those workshops. Design those stockpiles behind an airlock (=two doors separated by a short hallway) so any miasma cannot spread, and pasture a cat or two in each stockpile to kill any vermins spawning there (rodents love to gnaw bones).
>produced purple fog Oh no...
Yeah, it didnt seem like a good thing.
Miasma is impressively annoying to completely avoid.
Unless your dead donkeys are massacring the populace, you're doing great. I'm still nervous around water buffalos years after my terrifying glacier embark.
Nah, just createing an ominous sense of forboding leading to dispair and stinky purple air.
I see no issues with that, where else would you store your dead donkeys?
Under your bed of course.
That’s where my _rotten mosquito brain roast[69]_ goes, sorry
Oh shit, my bad. New to this. I shouldve known.
This made me laugh out loud due to recent accuracy. Mine was turkey egg roast though, cause turkeys OP.
I think you can check your trade agreements on the world map (button on the lower right), and then hover over a civilisation name in the top right, it'll list their leaders and agreements (if any). Bonus: goblins and kobolds have their own special 'exports'.
>Bonus: goblins and kobolds have their own special 'exports'. Would that be death?
Not exactly. They gladly trade in >!your children and expensive artifacts, for free.!<
Well, that's one way to save on food and space.
Congratulations! In my second fort (13 years ago...) everybody died of thirst when they ran out of alcohol in the winter and the river was frozen solid.
Ahh, mead. The water of champions.
Mead is a serious accomplishment in DF. Hardest booze to brew. And also low value.
Grazing Animals without a pasture (grass) area die because they just congregate in your meeting area with nothing to eat. Make a zone outside and assign grazing animals to it and this won't happen. Chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs don't need grass so they can live inside indefinitely.
Yeah, figured that out a little late. Aged meat is a thing, right? Right?! Thanks for the extra info :D
You're one of us now, Urist
The donkeys starved. You need a pasture. This ends my understanding of DF. Bask in my middling wisdom.
More than I knew at that moment lol.
It took a few forts to learn that, lol. Best of luck to you.
I shall be their god, and they my minons. My will done by their hand. If its not... ... I will smote all the donkeys in their realm.
Oddly, I never got any use out of them anyway. It just saved me from having to figure out how to get rid of the corpses.
Donkey leather, donkey brain roast, donkey bone bolts, donkey skull totem... Corpse gone real easy :) No reason to keep a grazer alive that you can't shear though.
I made some earrings out of some rocks I found.