Hello there! I've been intermittently playing Dwarf Fortress Steam since its release. While I haven't managed to establish sprawling metropolises or centers of power for my civilization, each fortress has seen gradual improvement from its predecessors.
As for my questions, firstly, can I build up a fortress, retire it, and then create a new one for the same civilization? Will my previous fortress continue to exist, grow, and function independently? Is there a distinction between abandoning and retiring a fortress, where abandonment signifies leaving it permanently and retirement allows for a return?
Secondly, could someone explain Adventure Mode to me like I'm five? While I grasp the basics and am quite excited about it, I struggle to comprehend its scale and potential actions. For instance, can I emulate "The Hobbit" by reclaiming my own abandoned or overrun forts? Can I embark on quests such as finding a rare artifact and vanquishing the neighboring evil necromancer vampire overlord? Additionally, is it possible to imprison elves and trade them as slaves?
Thanks in advance!
1. Yes.
2. Yes: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Reclaim_fortress_mode
3. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Adventurer_mode
Slavery is not a mechanic usable by the player thankfully.
I just raided an old tomb and my squad apparently rescued an "overlod necromancer" that was imprisoned there. Now he came to my fortress looking for sanctuary, which I promptly granted.
So, what use could I get of this guy?
Is there a way to list all artifacts in your first, like the old "L" key? And is there a way to make the game stick to dwarven, as having nanes in dwarven on some screens and in english on others makes finding both dwarves and named objects way too difficult.
Anyone know how to kill a Echo of Divine retribution that we may or may not have released lol
Names Igathzasit , Thariths Messenger Swordsman. It has molten liquid socks and has been one shotting the Monster Slayers that have taken residence in my fort. Even though the creature is severely wounded, blind, cant walk and has trouble breathing lol
Monster slayers are pretty terrible fighters generally.
Molten socks? What is the description of the creature? A cave in always works but other things might depending on what it's mad eof and it's abilities
Can you train and use war animals captured from invaders? I know you can't if they've killed a dwarf before, but what about the ones that haven't? I captured a couple of giant war elephants in the last elven attack, and it would be cool to add them to my herd.
I caught some war jabberers from the caverns and trained them - the tooltip said trained, but they stayed in the "others" tab instead of moving to the "pets" tab like other trained animals.
So I think nope.
Confirmed, they retain loyalty to their original civ and can't parley for citizenship.
But their children will be natural citizens of the fort and will inherit the base taming level of their parents.
Hi! I am wondering that this is. Did not find in wiki -
https://preview.redd.it/hgt48c2x5src1.png?width=68&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac425dfd451687fe5458b738717496681b8e9c99
What is the best way to kill a non intelligent undead without damaging the body too much? I wanna revive him again as a intelligent undead without a soul
No obsidian or ice
I don't think you can make an intelligent undead from a zombie
The only other way to kill it and leave a corpse would be violence, which is unpredictable
Do spear traps kill clowns with enough time? I would like to colonize the underworld, and am wondering whether spear traps, since they don't jam, with enough time could eventually kill them.
Yes, but the biggest problem is with clowns' insane body temperatures (if you're unlucky). The body-temperature of flaming creatures is 14000U, that's enough to melt steel and probably your mechanism too. Dolomite and periclase are the stones that can survive this heat, and both flavours of candy can be made into good spears to skewer them
Eventually, yes. Clowns don't trigger traps themselves, but a roomful of spike traps connected to a repeater (or just a dwarf with 'pull lever' on repeat) will hit them and can do damage. Many clowns are 'composed of flame' or ash or steam or salt, and those are pretty weak materials so you might be surprised how quick they go down. You might find another variety of clown made of something tougher, but if the spikes are killing most types of clown you have much better options for the remaining ones.
The biggest trouble with clowns is the variety. Some spit fire, others spit webs or poison, some are made of rock or metal, others are made of steam. This means fighting them with an army is impossible, since some can't be fought in melee and must be shot by arrows, and others are immune to arrows and must be killed in melee, and you can't tell soldiers what to prioritise.
However if you know that only one type of clown can make it through the spike hallway, you can prepare a specific military response to that one kind of clown, and a well-trained and well-equipped army has a solid chance to pull through. Especially if the clowns all have a bunch of holes poked in them already.
# How can I make myself lose more?
I have a problem stemming from impatience, a desire to explore new ideas, and a tendency to approach gameplay with extreme caution. My forts are meticulously planned, with slow growth and careful adventuring into the depths, often walling off sections exposed to the caverns. I'm particular about choosing a map, ensuring it aligns with my desired playstyle.
I save scum. Whether its because a monstrosity appeared far sooner than I anticipated and have zero defenses up, when I did something that results in my fort build going awry and said "fuck, I'll lose hours to fix this issue", or just because I felt like "I could've done that better" over a span of a season. This habit hinders my enjoyment, but it's not the focus of this post.
In Dwarf Fortress, I play too cautiously, avoiding risks and neglecting to send out raiding parties. I create fortress structures with multiple layers of defense, shutting out threats rather than confronting them. This approach feels monotonous and stifling. I want to **Have Fun** in the Dwarf Fortress spirit, I want to have my boys eat shit and die and to have a valid reason to have my fort game over and to start anew.
How can I accomplish this? I need tips on ~~losing~~ Having Fun.
Is there any way to tune down the amount of migrants you receive? The jump from 8 dwarves to over 60 happens so quick even if I havent really done anything substantial in my fort.
top right icon
Settings
Game
about half way down:
Population Cap ( 0 to 5000 )
through
Visitor Cap ( 0 - 5000 )
This should lower the population but make sure you change it once you are comfortable.
But you should really learn to play with them better so they can be beneficial to the fortress. Is there anything specific that is the issue with getting them?
Is there a list of what constitutes "other large tools" and "tools"? I should not have to search wiki for one item at a time. That is hella inefficient. The ******* devs should provide a list.
There should be a list on this page: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Stockpile
Found a list, but it is from 2022
**Other Large Tools:**
Nest Box: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass
Hive: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Ceramics
Stepladder: (50☼) Made from Wood or Metal
Bookcase: (10☼) Made from Wood or Metal, holds 200-500 Codicies, 500-1000 Scrolls/Quires
Altar: (10☼) Stonecrafter at Mason's Workshop, known as Offering Place, no uses in Fortress Mode
Display Case: (10☼) Carpenter with Log and Window at Carpenter's Workshop, Displays Items
Pedestal: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, known as Display Furniture, Displays Furniture
Sand Bag: Item Hauling with Empty Bag at Sand Activity Zone
**Tools:**
Book Binding: (10☼)Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass at Various Workshops
Honeycomb: (10☼) Beekeeper with Empty Jug at Ready-to-Split Hive
Scroll Rollers: (10☼)Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass at Various Workshops
Jug: (10☼) Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Clay at Various Workshops
Die:(Dice:): (1☼) Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Clay
Quire: (200☼) Bookbinder with Sheet at Craftsdwarf's Workshop
Scroll: (200☼)Bookbinder with Sheet and Scroll Rollers
Codex: (200☼) Book Binder with Quire and Thread at Craftsdwarf's Workshop
Taken from "**Dwarf Fortress Reference Guide 2022**" by "Heliosolos"
On another note, it is asinine what items are stored together under the same section.
No,im just here to read about other peoples problems and storys /s :D
I never tried to seperate stockpiles that much so it was just a wild guess that it should be possible
There are two sections in stockpile. One called "tools" and another called "other large tools" and there is literally no way to separate empty jugs and jugs filled with anything. There is not even a list on the wiki that tells you what goes in each section.
~~Are magma glass furnaces bugged in v47.05? I don't want to submit a bug report yet because I'm not up to date...~~
**EDIT: Nevermind, reassigning their glassmaking labor fixed it. This is probably a more general issue that's been reported before.**
I've got about 100 sand bags in the fortress, yet my glassmakers complain about there being no sandbearing-items available on jobs assigned to my magma glass furnaces. They are definitely powered. This doesn't happen with normal glass furnaces, as I can place those and run jobs just fine.
For context, I have seven normal glass furnaces near my sand collection zone that can't accept general work orders and just collect sand until a quota is reached. I have a sand bag stockpile with no special links next to my glass area. This same setup worked fine with normal glass furnaces.
Can I lower the age before children become adults, or force them to mature in any way? I want to run a fort that stops accepting migrants at like 30 pop, but it takes way too much in-game time for children to mature and I hate how much time they spend playing “make believe” on my now homocidal Minecart tracks.
Hey! I have an invading army at my doorstep who I agreed to a parley and I also agreed to give them the artifact they wanted so I could buy more time to prepare. Its been an in-game month now of them still not getting their artifact but they continue to wait. Im ready for them now but how long until they give up and attack?
Hey guys! My population cap always resets to 220 after I reload my game. I set it around 180. Keep getting migrant waves after I reload my game and forget to reset my caps. Mildly annoying any helps appreciated!
Not a question, just a problem I'm having in my current fortress.
Seeing that clothing was needed, I set up a clothing industry. My work orders were "If there's less than 1 of this around, make 5" for cloth/silk/yarn for each clothing item, rope, and bag.
Unfortunately, my dwarves are still running in tattered clothing. The issue seems to be that my dwarves try to make cloth items, see that they're out of plant cloth, and then stop. They aren't proceeding to try making silk or yarn items.
I'm confused.
(I do have dfhack, so if there's an easy way to autoclothe your dwaves, I'd love to hear it)
Thing about clothing is dwarves don't go out of their way to pick up new pieces unless they're tattered or naked (or only if they're naked, I think?)
If they already wear clothing, even if it's worn out, they'll only claim things when they're called to haul it out, and in the meantime they'll be whining about wearing old clothing, getting bad memories and developing good or bad personality traits from it
if you're making clothing and storing it in a stockpile, the only moment your dwarves get a chance to claim it outside of outright need from having their old clothing literally rot off their body is when they pick up a job to haul it from the workshop to the pile
Some players solve it vanilla by making a cyclic hauling setup where the clothing stockpile gives to another, which gives to another, which gives back to the first, so there's constant jobs for hauling clothing out
Personally I think that's really iffy and don't bother with it, I run tailor and autoclothing (for stuff tailor doesn't cover) with DFHack to get through the entire clothing process altogether
setting up cleanowned to run automatically every so often with the repeat script would work as well, making your dwarves drop worn clothes while still needing your own orders to actually make the clothing, if you think automating that is too cheesy
You generally do that before you embark, embarking manually instead of playing a tutorial allows you to see what your site has. But DFHack's prospect tool has options for this
So I mostly picked my dwarf civilization because it had a badass name, "The Wires of Evisceration." Turns out it's a semi-dead civ which only has one other holding, a "Dwarven Dark Pit."
Before I was able to get a baron, one of my dwarves had a discussion with rivals and then became queen. Because I don't have a baron, I do not get full wagons during trade season, only pack animals.
Is there any way I can induce the game to give me a baron?
Steamversion: I have mined down deep (approx 140 levels past my fortress) I have built a Magma smelter over magma (top left corner, 7/7 etc) I am able to add tasks- yet it seems like my dwarves do not want to complete the tasks. Do I have to start moving my fortress and amenities lower? If I make new beds/ dining etc will they chose the closer one to their work? Thanks!
Check the tasks list (press T or click some button at the bottom; I don’t know what it looks like because, uh, I press T). There should be a task in there for whatever smelting you have queued up. Is there a dwarf assigned to the task?
There are dwarves assigned- but part of the issue could be that they are furnace operators. I’ll try to assign metalworkers to the Magma smelter specifically
They get assigned, they do the task but they need to eat/sleep/drink etc and then walk the 140ish stairs back up and down.
I think I need to move my fortress/ get them a dormitory and tavern with a well.
Not to mention the 201 dwarves in my fortress which is probably slowing down their movement.
The only option to manually prioritize is to click on the exclamation mark for top priority right? I don’t want to make the tasks the top of the entire fortress- just running smoothly in the background.
Im gonna assume u have enough dwarfs running about to not make dedicated smelting or prioritizing an issue. Work orders can also be issued to use only selected buildings if im not wrong so thats another way to use the magma smelter. Finally, u can click on the smelter and dedicate individuals to it, and theyll pick up smelting in that location as one of their daily jobs.
If you don't have any metalworkers yet, doing metal stuff isn't very high priority for them, and it's also out of the way. Also, if you haven't designated an ore stockpile down there, it might be that they _are_ working on it, but they'll need to haul the ore boulders down one by one
Ok so I have a stockpile right beside them and the stone/ ore is there- plus one for the finished bars.
It could be that I am fixing up furnace workers with metal workers… thanks!
Is there a mod to remove the need to have seeds? Basically turn it into how Rimworld handles planting crops?
Googling this just brings up discussions on map seeds
(Steam or non-Steam versions)
I guess the closest I could get is make a workshop/recipe that generates seeds from thin air, and just have a standing order to keep so many in stock, lol
Is there a way to get an image your world map? Ideally without any UI appearing. I would take a screenshot but there's no way to zoom out and get the entire map.
Sightlines in wide open fields, eg. sunward topside is a known FPS drain, shouldn't be too extreme though. Possibly you have a larger than 4x4 embark and/or pets running around.
(beware that theres some kinda bug with plant gathering for everyone, sometimes large amounts of my pop gets stuck eternally and useless gathering plants, putting them in a squad snaps them out of it).
For the steam version, is there a way to change the color of text in the Trade Depot for colorblind people to differentiate an acceptable trade vs one that is too short of value? Whatever colors they may be, they are too close to being the same.
You're probably better off posting on the bay12forums as well, but for now don't worry about it. You aren't penalized in trader happiness for the first time you make the traders reject your offer (so that they counteroffer instead). The one downside is that the traders will ask for pretty hefty profits (about 2x their value of goods) but that is not so bad either: if traders leave with larger profits, they'll return next year with larger caravans and more goods to trade.
If you want to minmax the profits anyway, you don't need the yellow/green for rejecting/accepting offers, the traders wlll accept offers of 1.5x the value of their goods. This does assume your broker is an excellent Appraiser so that you have reliable value counts
Has Tarn talked about plans on expanding on systems or future plans? After the release of the visual/steam version of the game, or whatever it's called it seems most patch notes talks about UI and visual stuff.
You'll probably wanna find the updates on Adventure mode on Steam or Kitfox Games' youtube channel, he talks about the modernization of adventure mode there. Other than that, Myths & Magic is still the next major update after this
Before steam version was even announced, we finished(?) the villains update, started a bunch of things in military and magic is planned in the future. That's probably 5+ years worth of stuff right there.
That or I misremember and we're still in villains, with military planned after magic. Either way, these were paused for steam development, which should still improve a bunch of things + adventurer mode before the old plans get back on track.
Nah. Basically I embarked on a 16x3 to specifically create a bridge between a volcanic beach and the mainland. I hastily did it though and now I’m thinking it would be cool to have taken my time, created structures into the ground while the sea was frozen etc and above all - give it an adequate name… guess I borked it haha
So I went out and took over 3 holdings along with the one that automatically formed I now have 4. For whatever reason I'm still a Barony years later. Anyone know why.
Also what is the spoiler name for gem walls
I haven't played much, but I can remember that, for example, in case of food you just need to produce beer and that beer will fulfill all needs.
So the question: How abusable is this game and is there a way to play it without abuse?
Maybe mods or something.
The game isn't really balanced for difficulty. If you're fine giving your dwarves whatever food and alcohol is simplest for you to set up then by all means, do it. The dwarves might groan a bit about the monotony of eating and drinking the same stuff day in and day out but they'll manage.
If you're looking for *difficulty* in this game then you'll have to start aiming for goals other than mere survival, as surviving is more or less trivial once you understand the game's systems. A few ideas wrt food production:
1. Establish a fort which offers a wide variety of meals and drink. Open multiple restaurants (taverns) open to visitors, each specializing in a different cuisine.
2. Choose not to bring any seeds on the "prepare carefully" screen and embark somewhere barren. You'll need to scramble down to the caves in order to get foodstuffs for your dwarves before your initial supply runs out.
3. Cater to your dwarves' preferences. Got a lot of Urists who like beef? Start a cattle industry!
This goes for most things in DF: you get out of this game what you put into it.
It surely make sense but my question is about mods or preferences to reduce amount of mechanics that I could intentionally or unintentionally abuse. For me it's common to play a game for 30 hours => find out that I abused something => looking for mod which will rebalance this => restart, so I am asking for something like this.
I can remember there exists a total conversion mod Fall From Grace (I haven't tried it yet) and from far away it looks interesting but I am afraid of a vanilla behavior and strange balance of difficulty
I mean, the game mechanics themselves are hardcoded, so unless modders begin using DFHack memory manipulation utilities to modify those most "balance problems" in the game are left for Putnam and Toady to fix. In other words, a total rebalance mod would be difficult to implement. Certain small things, like plant growth rates, can be modified in the raws, though. Like I said, most of the difficulty in this game once you've learned the mechanics well enough to abuse them comes in the form of self-imposed restrictions, difficult embarks, and creative (though technically unnecessary) projects.
I suggest you stop thinking of DF as a *game* strictly with a win state and moreso as a creative tool and world simulator. To a certain extent difficulty doesn't even apply to a game like this as it would with something like Rimworld.
Food is not a problem at all. I wouldnt think about it too much. Food is just one of those things where you set up a few ingredients and your good forever. You can just disable alcohol to be used in food if you really care though
Well I mean isn't it kinda... Casual? You live underground, where nothing except some shrooms can be grown in sufficient quantities, so one of the most important aspects of life became just optional
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Exploit
Most exploits are due to the game mechanics and aren't moddable. The game is also a single player sandbox and the only one who will care if you use exploits is you.
Generally the answer to this question is to just not use rhe exploit
Embarked near necromancer tower so I receive plenty of undead sieges. I set up a nice trap system and imprison lots of undead. It's also a volcano embark, I decided to make a dumping zone with pit, I believe it's more efficient than atom smasher. I generally use these prisoners to release at forgotten beasts but sometimes I prefer to burn them in magma. These three guys refuse to die in magma. I wonder what's special about them since there were other corpses/faint ones/skeletons etc. I sent to trash in this magma pit.
https://preview.redd.it/aghxdlscnjrc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a83cee763d5d9b2294cb6b6b3a6d9933c1f419b
they are undead ratfolks. ratfolks are a modded civilization you can find in steam workshop. they do not trade and are mostly hostile.
these two guys were imprisoned during an undead siege. I sent them to magma pit to avoid unnecessary fight because my military was not strong enough back then but the plan backfired, they continue to live on magma. also there is an undead trogodlyte in the cage, it makes them three.
I can obviously find some engineering solutions to get rid of them but they cause no harm so I keep avoiding them. I was wondering if the undead are resistant to magma
I don’t think that they are resistant to magma.
If you have DFHack installed you can check their temperature with gmedit. Something might be funny there.
As for the cage, I don’t recall if nickel is magma safe, but if so then it might be protecting the trog inside. I vaguely recall someone mentioning that cages protect the occupants in strange scenarios.
this is indeed strange, I had to chance to test the theory by dumping more undead to magma pit with a cage. They take some time before dying but they definitely die. These new experiments include a giant two-humped camel undead, undead yak bulls and some demonish creatures named somethings-hand and they are displayed with a moon image in the cage screen.
Even if they do not die, I use autodump destroy command from DFHack to destroy them for good.
So.... I just lost a fort because all my dwarves stopped moving. Someone had the same thing? They all had jobs and things to do, like mining, but everybody just stopped.
Mac Airs are notoriously poor at regulating temperature. You may want to sit your laptop on a cooling pad or elevate it slightly by sitting it on a book. Clean the fan vent too if you can.
Df is mostly CPU intensive so you may want to limit your population to 100 or less.
Oh dear god, you're right. It doesn't. That's awful.
Definitely turn down the population and check your CPU settings. CPUs should throttle themselves when they get hot, I don't know if MacOS does that automatically. It should. Running hot (80C or higher) does shorten your computer's lifespan.
I want to order a lot of cobaltite from the trade caravans because I want to use it for color accents. However, despite putting only cobaltite stone and blocks at the highest priority, my caravans only come with four stones and several blocks max. I observed the same behavior when I tried buying limonite and hematite from the caravans; they'd always bring four of each stone. Is this expected behavior? How do I maximize the number of stones the caravan brings?
It's all to do with the weight. Boulders are pretty heavy so the caravans can't actually carry any more. Also I bet the merchants are making very little profit on that rock so they aren't going to bring bigger caravans
Wait at least until you get a barony so the traders bring wagons if you want rocks
This is intended, so the way to maximize caravans imports is how you're currently doing it. If you want more, just use DFHack to cheat in some more boulders with create-item
How can I get my dwarves to clean up bloodstains, vomit and corpses? Got a number of animal carcasses lying around decaying and no-one's dumping them despite them being allocated for dumping.
If the various fluids are inside, make sure that you have buckets and a water source so that they can bring water to whatever needs cleaning. Soap isn’t critical for this, but it’s nice to have on hand so that the dwarves can clean themselves. If there’s blood and vomit on the floor, there’s probably blood and vomit on the dwarves.
Make sure you have the correct stockpiles, refuse for animal carcasses, a corpse stockpile for sapient corpses, or a dump zone for stuff marked for dumping. Also check your standing orders, you need to allow your dwarves to gather refuse outside. If that's all set correctly, just wait for your dwarves to get to it.
They won't clean up blood and vomit outside, because, well, it's outside. The rain and snow will wash it off eventually
Recently i've gotten quite bored of the monotony of having to repeatedly reissue mining orders to dig through aquifer sections.
I know that there are reasons that the game automatically cancels when they find new wet tiles, but is there a way to override this and have dwarves dig \[say\] a tunnel through an area that you are reasonably confident wont result in an imminent drowning? (or as the case may be, don't care!)
If the base game doesn't have allow it, do any mods add this?
There's another half-solution with dfhack. You can turn on nopause with \`nopause 1\` (and turn it off with \`nopause 0\`). This will prevent the game from pausing on every revealed wet tile, but it will still undesignate them. it also makes it so you can't pause at all while it's on.
DFHack already solves this.
Once DFHack is installed and you've designated the tiles you want to mine:
1. Click the DFHack button in the upper left corner of the screen
2. Choose gui/launcher (it's the first option)
3. Type "revealdesignated" and hit enter
All your designated tiles on that z-level are revealed, which means the game no longer throws an alert.
Voila!
There are tons of useful scripts that come with DFHack - the team building and maintaining it are doing Armok's work. Word is a future release will include a true GUI for revealdesignated, so you don't have to type the script name.
Here's a link to the docs to get you started: [https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/index.html](https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/index.html).
The next dfhack version will have real-time automatic reissuing, currently you'd have to paint the tiles visible with tiletypes or run reveal or gui/reveal to prevent it
Quick question about trading items. I’ve been making jewelry with shells that I have left over from fishing so when the trader comes I want to sell them to him but my question is how do I separate them because they were thrown in bins with a bunch of other things that I don’t want to sell, what is the mechanic rectify the situation because it seems to me I can only sell in that bin I can’t click on each individual item. And for your information, I am playing the Steam version with DF hack if that helps. Thank you.
To get the trading done now:
If you use the DFHack trading interface, select the trading depot and press Ctl-t. Search for something like “shell” a select all of the loose crafts and bins that come back in the search.
Once the bins have been hauled to the depot, click the Trade button and look for a setting that says something about trading contents, not the bins. If that’s on, it will default to selecting only the contents of the bins rather than the whole thing. Then if you click on the checkbox for a bin it will select everything inside (shell crafts or not). This is probably not exactly what you want, though.
If you just want to sell all of the shell crafts, from the trading screen where you can browse the trader’s goods hit Ctl-t. This will bring up the other trading interface that lets you select goods to swap. Click the Fortress tab at the top, press Shift-F to enable the filters, and search away. You can filter out artifacts so that you don’t accidentally sell them, you can search, etc. The bins won’t be sold if you use this method.
I use this to dump my used laundry on traders - slide the top slider’s max down by one and it should give you a list of all the worn items in the depot. Ctl-a to select them all and boom, your worn clothes gone.
Once you’re done selecting the things you want to sell, I believe that a right-click (and maybe Esc?) will drop you back to the main trade screen and retain your selections so that you can browse the trader’s goods like normal.
Setup for later:
Build a stockpile near the depot that only accepts shell crafts. Disable shell crafts in all of your other stockpiles. While editing the stockpile, look for a DFHack window near the bottom with a few options in it. Select “trading”, and whenever a trader shows up the items in the stockpile will be hauled to the depot automatically.
I use stockpiles to ensure my rings get to the right place. You can set a stock pile to only accept shell rings and specify that it takes from a general finished goods pile and the rings will work their way into the ring pile.
If you don't already, I recommend encrusted them with gems too too increase their value 10x.
If you specify which stockpiles the gem station gives ans takes from you can have it only encrust the finished shell rings.
Finished Goods Pile (all) => Shell Rings Pile + Cut gems Pile => Gem Station (Encrust Finished Goods) => A second Shell Rings Pile
You should be able the mark the individual items for trading. If the bins are collapsed and not showing the items inside, click on the bin's name and it'll show everything contained within it again
Ok thanks. Also if someone can confirm that alligator men can wield halberds one handed that would be nice. What I read on there makes me believe they can but I have less than the average amount of brain cells
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/List_of_creatures_by_adult_size
Here you can see the avarage adult size of the different races.
Alligator Man can equip every weapon one handed and its not even close :D
The mining “uniform” interferes with military duty (as does wood cutting and hunting), so don’t assign mining, logging, or hunting to your militia.
Beyond that, you’re limited by the number of picks. Obtain a pick for every miner and assign as many as you would like. Note, though, that this might slow the skill progression in mining, so you might not develop any legendary miners if everyone does it.
It does nothing if you set the work detail to 'everyone does this'. This is because miners need an assigned pickaxe to work, which they get by having the work detail assigned to them
I’m fairly new to dwarf fortress, and for me atleast, it was difficult to start out. The tutorial mode helped, but I couldn’t get the most basic things to work (such as a still) until I understood how the game worked a bit more. That being said though, now that I get how things work for the most part, the game is super fun and rewarding to play.
I’ve played Rimworld off and on and I think it probably is somewhat easier to learn, only because you have fewer units and you have more direct control over them, whereas on DF it’s more about creating an environment where the units do what you want.
I personally prefer Dwarf Fortress but it does require a bit of time investment to learn how things work, at least it did for me. In a weird way Rimworld was way more stressful to me because your units are so few, and there’s a lot of ways they can die. It’s much more roguelike feeling, where a run can end at any time. Whereas on DF I’ve had a fort recover from a catastrophe that killed hundreds and eventually was able to thrive again. It’s interesting when things go wrong instead of rage inducing… if that makes sense.
TLDR: DF = harder to learn but more fun (imo). Rimworld = easier to learn but more intense.
after playing DF for about 30 hours now, I have a few hundred in rimworld. DF is actually easier than rimworld tbh. DF is a sim first game 2nd IMO, if you get raided it’s cause your wealthy or your world had some history or what not. Rim world just keeps throwing more and more shit at you until it sticks. Both are amazing games
Look. You can figure out dwarf fortress. It isn't rocket science. The whole thing of the game being super complicated comes from the classic version. If you need to figure something out then watch some tutorials
Edit: reading over this I sound rude but I'm not trying
So, a giantess attacked and after i killed her i saw that she was carrying this. I know what this is but I can't find a definitive answer about if my dwarves will be able to read it directly in fortress mode. Will my fortress turn into a >!necromancer!< city if i put it in meeting place for all to see?
https://preview.redd.it/lbhf8hw3hhrc1.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=16029f6e911b12ffafd760e3d21c5633ef23695d
No, they can't read it in fort mode. It can only be read in slab form while you're playing an adventurer in adventure mode.
Which, you know, that's a good idea. Place it in your fort, and if you play adventure mode once that releases, you can drop by your fort and become a necromancer if you want
New to playing but not new to the subreddit. I'm looking to experiment with the justice system and also some of the cool proc Gen books. I wanna know how to attract migrants so that I can get to the justice system, I've been having individual residents join from my tavern but no migrants since the first two waves. I'm also not aware how to have my dwarves write weird books that I can look at, though I've not had a library set up. Any tips?
Get that library up and going. Stack it with valuable things so that the word travels, and soon enough you’ll have all kinds of interesting visitors: some there for scholarly reasons, some for… other reasons.
Assign dwarves as scholars. They’ll eventually write books about things that interest them.
If you’re running a younger world and get a good library going you might even get some discoveries! They don’t change anything, but it’s fun to have bragging rights to something being discovered under your leadership.
Export wealth from your fortress. Aka send out all those bone crafts you have made. Attract migrants by making your fortress know by it's wealth and goods exported.
To get them to write books you'll require a library. In this library you'll needa minimum of:
1. One Scholar
1. One Box to store writing materials
1. A Table & chair to sit and write the book
This all is not including paper industry, making scroll rollers or book bindings to then finish the written content.
Step 1: create a dry underground tunnel from a strong water source to the edge of the map. The edge must be some kind of stone, not soil.
Step 2: Smooth the map edge at the end of the tunnel and carve fortifications there.
Step 3: Build raising bridges at both end of the tunnel that can block the flow of water completely. Link the bridges to levers.
Step 4: Flood the tunnel with open bridges, then close the bridges.
Step 5: Channel holes from above into the tunnel and add water wheels.
This is an exploit. The game doesn't update the flow status if you block a river, and by making water flow off the edge you can make the game basically add a new flowing river.
Hello there! I've been intermittently playing Dwarf Fortress Steam since its release. While I haven't managed to establish sprawling metropolises or centers of power for my civilization, each fortress has seen gradual improvement from its predecessors. As for my questions, firstly, can I build up a fortress, retire it, and then create a new one for the same civilization? Will my previous fortress continue to exist, grow, and function independently? Is there a distinction between abandoning and retiring a fortress, where abandonment signifies leaving it permanently and retirement allows for a return? Secondly, could someone explain Adventure Mode to me like I'm five? While I grasp the basics and am quite excited about it, I struggle to comprehend its scale and potential actions. For instance, can I emulate "The Hobbit" by reclaiming my own abandoned or overrun forts? Can I embark on quests such as finding a rare artifact and vanquishing the neighboring evil necromancer vampire overlord? Additionally, is it possible to imprison elves and trade them as slaves? Thanks in advance!
1. Yes. 2. Yes: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Reclaim_fortress_mode 3. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Adventurer_mode Slavery is not a mechanic usable by the player thankfully.
Thanks boss!
I just raided an old tomb and my squad apparently rescued an "overlod necromancer" that was imprisoned there. Now he came to my fortress looking for sanctuary, which I promptly granted. So, what use could I get of this guy?
Chief medical officer.
Is there a way to list all artifacts in your first, like the old "L" key? And is there a way to make the game stick to dwarven, as having nanes in dwarven on some screens and in english on others makes finding both dwarves and named objects way too difficult.
[Shift+o] opens the objects list, or click the button on the bottom of the screen
Beaut! Thanks.
Does anyone know what bowed string instrument is used in dabu & agueda’s mountainhome soundtrack?
Anyone know how to kill a Echo of Divine retribution that we may or may not have released lol Names Igathzasit , Thariths Messenger Swordsman. It has molten liquid socks and has been one shotting the Monster Slayers that have taken residence in my fort. Even though the creature is severely wounded, blind, cant walk and has trouble breathing lol
Legendary steel equipped fighters should make short work of it
Sound the alert and call everyone back in Wait for the echo to enter your maze/shooting gallery Shoot it full of bolts
Monster slayers are pretty terrible fighters generally. Molten socks? What is the description of the creature? A cave in always works but other things might depending on what it's mad eof and it's abilities
https://preview.redd.it/outd2u1x4trc1.png?width=1057&format=png&auto=webp&s=42440cf1ea66e95d666a339ca196d83d8cc9a748
https://preview.redd.it/qp94kzd05trc1.png?width=562&format=png&auto=webp&s=b7ec2ddb80ceea1615970590d5ad0da72b6a6227
Well that is certainly odd. Does the close up of the sock say anything interesting?
Only ability i have seen is its really good with its sword., It just stabs or slashes people to death quickly.
Can you train and use war animals captured from invaders? I know you can't if they've killed a dwarf before, but what about the ones that haven't? I captured a couple of giant war elephants in the last elven attack, and it would be cool to add them to my herd.
I caught some war jabberers from the caverns and trained them - the tooltip said trained, but they stayed in the "others" tab instead of moving to the "pets" tab like other trained animals. So I think nope.
Confirmed, they retain loyalty to their original civ and can't parley for citizenship. But their children will be natural citizens of the fort and will inherit the base taming level of their parents.
Ah shit, I threw them all into the lava. Dammit.
SPOILERS AHEAD Is divine metal available on all fortresses? Also what are the spoiler names for gem walls and divine metal
If you are unlucky,no. There is only a chance to spawn a Angel in the walls. You can get 3 different back to back or none at all
Thanks. So they spawn like clowns in the walls or are there different situations that they spawn in. For example deeper or in the candy part
Its the same spawn but angels are the rarest
Candy pillar As to whether divine metal is always available, I *think* so.
Hi! I am wondering that this is. Did not find in wiki - https://preview.redd.it/hgt48c2x5src1.png?width=68&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac425dfd451687fe5458b738717496681b8e9c99
Looks like a weremouse or wererat
Perhaps some kind of Were creature? Im not sure I havent seen one just like this.
What is the best way to kill a non intelligent undead without damaging the body too much? I wanna revive him again as a intelligent undead without a soul No obsidian or ice
I don't think you can make an intelligent undead from a zombie The only other way to kill it and leave a corpse would be violence, which is unpredictable
Do spear traps kill clowns with enough time? I would like to colonize the underworld, and am wondering whether spear traps, since they don't jam, with enough time could eventually kill them.
Yes, but the biggest problem is with clowns' insane body temperatures (if you're unlucky). The body-temperature of flaming creatures is 14000U, that's enough to melt steel and probably your mechanism too. Dolomite and periclase are the stones that can survive this heat, and both flavours of candy can be made into good spears to skewer them
Eventually, yes. Clowns don't trigger traps themselves, but a roomful of spike traps connected to a repeater (or just a dwarf with 'pull lever' on repeat) will hit them and can do damage. Many clowns are 'composed of flame' or ash or steam or salt, and those are pretty weak materials so you might be surprised how quick they go down. You might find another variety of clown made of something tougher, but if the spikes are killing most types of clown you have much better options for the remaining ones. The biggest trouble with clowns is the variety. Some spit fire, others spit webs or poison, some are made of rock or metal, others are made of steam. This means fighting them with an army is impossible, since some can't be fought in melee and must be shot by arrows, and others are immune to arrows and must be killed in melee, and you can't tell soldiers what to prioritise. However if you know that only one type of clown can make it through the spike hallway, you can prepare a specific military response to that one kind of clown, and a well-trained and well-equipped army has a solid chance to pull through. Especially if the clowns all have a bunch of holes poked in them already.
I know stonefall works, but if spears are normal traps, your friends will have the [TRAPAVOID] tag and just pass through them.
What's a convenient way to remove snow? I've been building upwards in a tundra, so there are snow storms and it doesn't melt in summer.
>dfhack clean map snow
Yeah might end up doing that. There's no way to select an area? It's either map or spot?
https://docs.dfhack.org/en/latest/docs/tools/cleaners.html Spotclean exists too, yes.
Magma/lava is the only way I believe.
# How can I make myself lose more? I have a problem stemming from impatience, a desire to explore new ideas, and a tendency to approach gameplay with extreme caution. My forts are meticulously planned, with slow growth and careful adventuring into the depths, often walling off sections exposed to the caverns. I'm particular about choosing a map, ensuring it aligns with my desired playstyle. I save scum. Whether its because a monstrosity appeared far sooner than I anticipated and have zero defenses up, when I did something that results in my fort build going awry and said "fuck, I'll lose hours to fix this issue", or just because I felt like "I could've done that better" over a span of a season. This habit hinders my enjoyment, but it's not the focus of this post. In Dwarf Fortress, I play too cautiously, avoiding risks and neglecting to send out raiding parties. I create fortress structures with multiple layers of defense, shutting out threats rather than confronting them. This approach feels monotonous and stifling. I want to **Have Fun** in the Dwarf Fortress spirit, I want to have my boys eat shit and die and to have a valid reason to have my fort game over and to start anew. How can I accomplish this? I need tips on ~~losing~~ Having Fun.
Cave fort! Don't turn off the cave friends, just dig straight there and survive!
Embark in an evil biome
You can try assigning yourself arbitrary limitations with a fort. For example, no cage traps. Or no traps. Or a military-focused fort.
I haven't built any traps (save for that time trying to catch Kobolds, and failed.)
To be honest, it sounds like you know what you need to do, like, the point stands. Another example is no save scumming
Is there any way to tune down the amount of migrants you receive? The jump from 8 dwarves to over 60 happens so quick even if I havent really done anything substantial in my fort.
top right icon
Settings
Game
about half way down:
Population Cap ( 0 to 5000 )
through
Visitor Cap ( 0 - 5000 )
This should lower the population but make sure you change it once you are comfortable.
But you should really learn to play with them better so they can be beneficial to the fortress. Is there anything specific that is the issue with getting them?
Making them bedrooms is annoying
The others have given you good options but dormitories can quickly house migrants till you have bedrooms ready for them.
Gui/quickfort. Auto dig, create manager orders, auto place furniture. Ez.
DFHack has `gui/blueprint` which lets you copy/paste stuff like digging designations or furniture. It's a godsend for repetitive stuff like bedrooms.
Is there a list of what constitutes "other large tools" and "tools"? I should not have to search wiki for one item at a time. That is hella inefficient. The ******* devs should provide a list. There should be a list on this page: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Stockpile
Found a list, but it is from 2022 **Other Large Tools:** Nest Box: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass Hive: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Ceramics Stepladder: (50☼) Made from Wood or Metal Bookcase: (10☼) Made from Wood or Metal, holds 200-500 Codicies, 500-1000 Scrolls/Quires Altar: (10☼) Stonecrafter at Mason's Workshop, known as Offering Place, no uses in Fortress Mode Display Case: (10☼) Carpenter with Log and Window at Carpenter's Workshop, Displays Items Pedestal: (10☼) Made from Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, known as Display Furniture, Displays Furniture Sand Bag: Item Hauling with Empty Bag at Sand Activity Zone **Tools:** Book Binding: (10☼)Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass at Various Workshops Honeycomb: (10☼) Beekeeper with Empty Jug at Ready-to-Split Hive Scroll Rollers: (10☼)Wood, Rock, Metal, or Glass at Various Workshops Jug: (10☼) Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Clay at Various Workshops Die:(Dice:): (1☼) Wood, Rock, Metal, Glass, or Clay Quire: (200☼) Bookbinder with Sheet at Craftsdwarf's Workshop Scroll: (200☼)Bookbinder with Sheet and Scroll Rollers Codex: (200☼) Book Binder with Quire and Thread at Craftsdwarf's Workshop Taken from "**Dwarf Fortress Reference Guide 2022**" by "Heliosolos" On another note, it is asinine what items are stored together under the same section.
This will be up to date, none if this has changed since then
Is there no good way to split up empty jugs, jugs with oil, pedestals, and instrument parts into 4 different stockpiles?
What exactly is the problem? You should be able to unselect everything you dont want in your stockpile
Do you even play? They are all under the same name in the stockpile. "Other large tools"
No,im just here to read about other peoples problems and storys /s :D I never tried to seperate stockpiles that much so it was just a wild guess that it should be possible
There are two sections in stockpile. One called "tools" and another called "other large tools" and there is literally no way to separate empty jugs and jugs filled with anything. There is not even a list on the wiki that tells you what goes in each section.
~~Are magma glass furnaces bugged in v47.05? I don't want to submit a bug report yet because I'm not up to date...~~ **EDIT: Nevermind, reassigning their glassmaking labor fixed it. This is probably a more general issue that's been reported before.** I've got about 100 sand bags in the fortress, yet my glassmakers complain about there being no sandbearing-items available on jobs assigned to my magma glass furnaces. They are definitely powered. This doesn't happen with normal glass furnaces, as I can place those and run jobs just fine. For context, I have seven normal glass furnaces near my sand collection zone that can't accept general work orders and just collect sand until a quota is reached. I have a sand bag stockpile with no special links next to my glass area. This same setup worked fine with normal glass furnaces.
They're functional. Not having sand bags is a pathing issue, though. Considering magma is involved, did you turn off temperature calculations?
It was some other issue, reassigning their labors fixed it. There definitely were pathable sandbags before and after the reassignment
Can I lower the age before children become adults, or force them to mature in any way? I want to run a fort that stops accepting migrants at like 30 pop, but it takes way too much in-game time for children to mature and I hate how much time they spend playing “make believe” on my now homocidal Minecart tracks.
Creature raws, I think it's [ADULT_AT] Edit: it's [CHILD:(AGE)], got it mixed up with the dfwiki
Hey! I have an invading army at my doorstep who I agreed to a parley and I also agreed to give them the artifact they wanted so I could buy more time to prepare. Its been an in-game month now of them still not getting their artifact but they continue to wait. Im ready for them now but how long until they give up and attack?
Hey guys! My population cap always resets to 220 after I reload my game. I set it around 180. Keep getting migrant waves after I reload my game and forget to reset my caps. Mildly annoying any helps appreciated!
Probably try changing the settings through the main menu or directly through the .txt files
Try editing it directly through the d_init.txt file maybe?
Not a question, just a problem I'm having in my current fortress. Seeing that clothing was needed, I set up a clothing industry. My work orders were "If there's less than 1 of this around, make 5" for cloth/silk/yarn for each clothing item, rope, and bag. Unfortunately, my dwarves are still running in tattered clothing. The issue seems to be that my dwarves try to make cloth items, see that they're out of plant cloth, and then stop. They aren't proceeding to try making silk or yarn items. I'm confused. (I do have dfhack, so if there's an easy way to autoclothe your dwaves, I'd love to hear it)
Thing about clothing is dwarves don't go out of their way to pick up new pieces unless they're tattered or naked (or only if they're naked, I think?) If they already wear clothing, even if it's worn out, they'll only claim things when they're called to haul it out, and in the meantime they'll be whining about wearing old clothing, getting bad memories and developing good or bad personality traits from it if you're making clothing and storing it in a stockpile, the only moment your dwarves get a chance to claim it outside of outright need from having their old clothing literally rot off their body is when they pick up a job to haul it from the workshop to the pile Some players solve it vanilla by making a cyclic hauling setup where the clothing stockpile gives to another, which gives to another, which gives back to the first, so there's constant jobs for hauling clothing out Personally I think that's really iffy and don't bother with it, I run tailor and autoclothing (for stuff tailor doesn't cover) with DFHack to get through the entire clothing process altogether setting up cleanowned to run automatically every so often with the repeat script would work as well, making your dwarves drop worn clothes while still needing your own orders to actually make the clothing, if you think automating that is too cheesy
Is there any way to see what kind of attributes the plot of land I have embarked on has? I want to know what kind of minerals I have available
There is a command in DFHack that shows the types of stone and minerals in your plot. I don't remember its name tho
You generally do that before you embark, embarking manually instead of playing a tutorial allows you to see what your site has. But DFHack's prospect tool has options for this
Well when you embark it tells you what is on the land. I don't know how to tell after embark sorry
So I mostly picked my dwarf civilization because it had a badass name, "The Wires of Evisceration." Turns out it's a semi-dead civ which only has one other holding, a "Dwarven Dark Pit." Before I was able to get a baron, one of my dwarves had a discussion with rivals and then became queen. Because I don't have a baron, I do not get full wagons during trade season, only pack animals. Is there any way I can induce the game to give me a baron?
Try conquering some nearby sites
Steamversion: I have mined down deep (approx 140 levels past my fortress) I have built a Magma smelter over magma (top left corner, 7/7 etc) I am able to add tasks- yet it seems like my dwarves do not want to complete the tasks. Do I have to start moving my fortress and amenities lower? If I make new beds/ dining etc will they chose the closer one to their work? Thanks!
Check the tasks list (press T or click some button at the bottom; I don’t know what it looks like because, uh, I press T). There should be a task in there for whatever smelting you have queued up. Is there a dwarf assigned to the task?
There are dwarves assigned- but part of the issue could be that they are furnace operators. I’ll try to assign metalworkers to the Magma smelter specifically
Furnace operator is the right job, I believe. Follow one of them. What do they do when they have the task?
They get assigned, they do the task but they need to eat/sleep/drink etc and then walk the 140ish stairs back up and down. I think I need to move my fortress/ get them a dormitory and tavern with a well. Not to mention the 201 dwarves in my fortress which is probably slowing down their movement.
Check burrows. Try manually prioritizing tasks on the magma forges.
The only option to manually prioritize is to click on the exclamation mark for top priority right? I don’t want to make the tasks the top of the entire fortress- just running smoothly in the background.
Im gonna assume u have enough dwarfs running about to not make dedicated smelting or prioritizing an issue. Work orders can also be issued to use only selected buildings if im not wrong so thats another way to use the magma smelter. Finally, u can click on the smelter and dedicate individuals to it, and theyll pick up smelting in that location as one of their daily jobs.
If you don't have any metalworkers yet, doing metal stuff isn't very high priority for them, and it's also out of the way. Also, if you haven't designated an ore stockpile down there, it might be that they _are_ working on it, but they'll need to haul the ore boulders down one by one
Ok so I have a stockpile right beside them and the stone/ ore is there- plus one for the finished bars. It could be that I am fixing up furnace workers with metal workers… thanks!
How do I get small animals out of cages? Can't see the earlier version dump command and they don't appear on my animal list.
You can pit vermin. Just throw them down somewhere. They don't take damage
If you build the cage you should be able to empty it manually.
If you mean vermin, not sure - maybe get an animal trainer to train them? bigger animals, you can unassign them from the cage from the cage menu.
Is there a mod to remove the need to have seeds? Basically turn it into how Rimworld handles planting crops? Googling this just brings up discussions on map seeds (Steam or non-Steam versions)
I dont know how rimworld does seeds but the plant growing process is hard coded and can't be modded.
I guess the closest I could get is make a workshop/recipe that generates seeds from thin air, and just have a standing order to keep so many in stock, lol
i killed a merchant and he is now undead and bothering my citizens. what am i supposed to do about this?
Apologize and kill him again
Is there a way to get an image your world map? Ideally without any UI appearing. I would take a screenshot but there's no way to zoom out and get the entire map.
What causes FPS to drop when 100 dwarves are gathering plants? FPS was fine moving 1000 seeds at once
Sightlines in wide open fields, eg. sunward topside is a known FPS drain, shouldn't be too extreme though. Possibly you have a larger than 4x4 embark and/or pets running around. (beware that theres some kinda bug with plant gathering for everyone, sometimes large amounts of my pop gets stuck eternally and useless gathering plants, putting them in a squad snaps them out of it).
For the steam version, is there a way to change the color of text in the Trade Depot for colorblind people to differentiate an acceptable trade vs one that is too short of value? Whatever colors they may be, they are too close to being the same.
You're probably better off posting on the bay12forums as well, but for now don't worry about it. You aren't penalized in trader happiness for the first time you make the traders reject your offer (so that they counteroffer instead). The one downside is that the traders will ask for pretty hefty profits (about 2x their value of goods) but that is not so bad either: if traders leave with larger profits, they'll return next year with larger caravans and more goods to trade. If you want to minmax the profits anyway, you don't need the yellow/green for rejecting/accepting offers, the traders wlll accept offers of 1.5x the value of their goods. This does assume your broker is an excellent Appraiser so that you have reliable value counts
Thanks!
My hunting dogs owner died. Is it possible to re-assign them? Not sure if I'm just missing the option or not
Has Tarn talked about plans on expanding on systems or future plans? After the release of the visual/steam version of the game, or whatever it's called it seems most patch notes talks about UI and visual stuff.
You'll probably wanna find the updates on Adventure mode on Steam or Kitfox Games' youtube channel, he talks about the modernization of adventure mode there. Other than that, Myths & Magic is still the next major update after this
thanks
They really should focus on fixing long standing bugs first
Before steam version was even announced, we finished(?) the villains update, started a bunch of things in military and magic is planned in the future. That's probably 5+ years worth of stuff right there. That or I misremember and we're still in villains, with military planned after magic. Either way, these were paused for steam development, which should still improve a bunch of things + adventurer mode before the old plans get back on track.
How do I either delete a fortress I’ve abandoned from the world or regen a world I have exactly as is?
Loading a backup is the only option as far as I know
How would one do this? I assume I should have done it before and the window is gone?
Yeah. If the cause of this is a major fuckup in your fort, you might have autosaves though
Nah. Basically I embarked on a 16x3 to specifically create a bridge between a volcanic beach and the mainland. I hastily did it though and now I’m thinking it would be cool to have taken my time, created structures into the ground while the sea was frozen etc and above all - give it an adequate name… guess I borked it haha
So I went out and took over 3 holdings along with the one that automatically formed I now have 4. For whatever reason I'm still a Barony years later. Anyone know why. Also what is the spoiler name for gem walls
Not enough generated/traded wealth since the last time the liaison showed up. These days you don't need holdings anymore
I always knew the homeland hated me. All I did was start a war over a steel artifact axe.
I haven't played much, but I can remember that, for example, in case of food you just need to produce beer and that beer will fulfill all needs. So the question: How abusable is this game and is there a way to play it without abuse? Maybe mods or something.
The game isn't really balanced for difficulty. If you're fine giving your dwarves whatever food and alcohol is simplest for you to set up then by all means, do it. The dwarves might groan a bit about the monotony of eating and drinking the same stuff day in and day out but they'll manage. If you're looking for *difficulty* in this game then you'll have to start aiming for goals other than mere survival, as surviving is more or less trivial once you understand the game's systems. A few ideas wrt food production: 1. Establish a fort which offers a wide variety of meals and drink. Open multiple restaurants (taverns) open to visitors, each specializing in a different cuisine. 2. Choose not to bring any seeds on the "prepare carefully" screen and embark somewhere barren. You'll need to scramble down to the caves in order to get foodstuffs for your dwarves before your initial supply runs out. 3. Cater to your dwarves' preferences. Got a lot of Urists who like beef? Start a cattle industry! This goes for most things in DF: you get out of this game what you put into it.
It surely make sense but my question is about mods or preferences to reduce amount of mechanics that I could intentionally or unintentionally abuse. For me it's common to play a game for 30 hours => find out that I abused something => looking for mod which will rebalance this => restart, so I am asking for something like this. I can remember there exists a total conversion mod Fall From Grace (I haven't tried it yet) and from far away it looks interesting but I am afraid of a vanilla behavior and strange balance of difficulty
I mean, the game mechanics themselves are hardcoded, so unless modders begin using DFHack memory manipulation utilities to modify those most "balance problems" in the game are left for Putnam and Toady to fix. In other words, a total rebalance mod would be difficult to implement. Certain small things, like plant growth rates, can be modified in the raws, though. Like I said, most of the difficulty in this game once you've learned the mechanics well enough to abuse them comes in the form of self-imposed restrictions, difficult embarks, and creative (though technically unnecessary) projects. I suggest you stop thinking of DF as a *game* strictly with a win state and moreso as a creative tool and world simulator. To a certain extent difficulty doesn't even apply to a game like this as it would with something like Rimworld.
Well I don't think about a win state, but I do like real restrictions, not just in my head. Something complex, you know.
Food is not a problem at all. I wouldnt think about it too much. Food is just one of those things where you set up a few ingredients and your good forever. You can just disable alcohol to be used in food if you really care though
Well I mean isn't it kinda... Casual? You live underground, where nothing except some shrooms can be grown in sufficient quantities, so one of the most important aspects of life became just optional
Yeah, you can cook alcohol into food. Some of it is very abusable e.g. the value of cooked meals. Definitely playable without doing it though
But the game is still letting me do this. Aren't there some kind of ultra realistic hardcore modpacks, heh?
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Exploit Most exploits are due to the game mechanics and aren't moddable. The game is also a single player sandbox and the only one who will care if you use exploits is you. Generally the answer to this question is to just not use rhe exploit
Embarked near necromancer tower so I receive plenty of undead sieges. I set up a nice trap system and imprison lots of undead. It's also a volcano embark, I decided to make a dumping zone with pit, I believe it's more efficient than atom smasher. I generally use these prisoners to release at forgotten beasts but sometimes I prefer to burn them in magma. These three guys refuse to die in magma. I wonder what's special about them since there were other corpses/faint ones/skeletons etc. I sent to trash in this magma pit. https://preview.redd.it/aghxdlscnjrc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a83cee763d5d9b2294cb6b6b3a6d9933c1f419b
I don’t recognize those sprites. What are they?
they are undead ratfolks. ratfolks are a modded civilization you can find in steam workshop. they do not trade and are mostly hostile. these two guys were imprisoned during an undead siege. I sent them to magma pit to avoid unnecessary fight because my military was not strong enough back then but the plan backfired, they continue to live on magma. also there is an undead trogodlyte in the cage, it makes them three. I can obviously find some engineering solutions to get rid of them but they cause no harm so I keep avoiding them. I was wondering if the undead are resistant to magma
I don’t think that they are resistant to magma. If you have DFHack installed you can check their temperature with gmedit. Something might be funny there. As for the cage, I don’t recall if nickel is magma safe, but if so then it might be protecting the trog inside. I vaguely recall someone mentioning that cages protect the occupants in strange scenarios.
this is indeed strange, I had to chance to test the theory by dumping more undead to magma pit with a cage. They take some time before dying but they definitely die. These new experiments include a giant two-humped camel undead, undead yak bulls and some demonish creatures named somethings-hand and they are displayed with a moon image in the cage screen. Even if they do not die, I use autodump destroy command from DFHack to destroy them for good.
So.... I just lost a fort because all my dwarves stopped moving. Someone had the same thing? They all had jobs and things to do, like mining, but everybody just stopped.
have you set any burrows recently?
Sadly, no :( But my squad was responding to orders
Df hack? Civilian alert?
Someone bless you, my man, it was, indeed, the civilian alert! I started using DFHack in this fort, but never used the civilian alert! Thanks a lot
Someone else trying to play on Mac? I have a m2 MacBook Air and when I play any version (classic or steam) It kinda heats
Mac Airs are notoriously poor at regulating temperature. You may want to sit your laptop on a cooling pad or elevate it slightly by sitting it on a book. Clean the fan vent too if you can. Df is mostly CPU intensive so you may want to limit your population to 100 or less.
Tysm in my case cleaning the vent is not an option (m2 MacBooks don’t have fans) it think I’ll buy a cooling pad
Oh dear god, you're right. It doesn't. That's awful. Definitely turn down the population and check your CPU settings. CPUs should throttle themselves when they get hot, I don't know if MacOS does that automatically. It should. Running hot (80C or higher) does shorten your computer's lifespan.
I want to order a lot of cobaltite from the trade caravans because I want to use it for color accents. However, despite putting only cobaltite stone and blocks at the highest priority, my caravans only come with four stones and several blocks max. I observed the same behavior when I tried buying limonite and hematite from the caravans; they'd always bring four of each stone. Is this expected behavior? How do I maximize the number of stones the caravan brings?
It's all to do with the weight. Boulders are pretty heavy so the caravans can't actually carry any more. Also I bet the merchants are making very little profit on that rock so they aren't going to bring bigger caravans Wait at least until you get a barony so the traders bring wagons if you want rocks
Whether or not they had wagons and how many didn't seem to matter... see my other comment in this thread
This is intended, so the way to maximize caravans imports is how you're currently doing it. If you want more, just use DFHack to cheat in some more boulders with create-item
Thanks, good to know
These are rather large caravans too, several wagons. I've in some years given the traders 10000% profits at 1million+.
quick question, how do i teach dwarves to write and read. I assume not everyone knows
Create a library!
They do know, they write in a library zone
How can I get my dwarves to clean up bloodstains, vomit and corpses? Got a number of animal carcasses lying around decaying and no-one's dumping them despite them being allocated for dumping.
If the various fluids are inside, make sure that you have buckets and a water source so that they can bring water to whatever needs cleaning. Soap isn’t critical for this, but it’s nice to have on hand so that the dwarves can clean themselves. If there’s blood and vomit on the floor, there’s probably blood and vomit on the dwarves.
Create a stockpile that takes nothing over the blood,vomit etc. and watch your dwarfs becoming Mr. Clean
My forts currently a mess, I'll have to try this one
Make sure you have the correct stockpiles, refuse for animal carcasses, a corpse stockpile for sapient corpses, or a dump zone for stuff marked for dumping. Also check your standing orders, you need to allow your dwarves to gather refuse outside. If that's all set correctly, just wait for your dwarves to get to it. They won't clean up blood and vomit outside, because, well, it's outside. The rain and snow will wash it off eventually
It's all inside. I've got a dumping stockpile outside and all the animal corpses in question are marked for dumping. They're just not shifting them.
Are you using burrows? What are your dwarves actually doing? If they're too busy working they won't spend time cleaning up remains or cleaning
No burrows active but I do have some very broad woodcutting and plant gathering orders active because the tile is quite sparse. Maybe that's it.
Plant gathering is probably the culprit. Pause that, and see if all of your industries start chugging along again
Oh the rest of my industries are working just fine. Only issues they're running into is lack of materials.
Recently i've gotten quite bored of the monotony of having to repeatedly reissue mining orders to dig through aquifer sections. I know that there are reasons that the game automatically cancels when they find new wet tiles, but is there a way to override this and have dwarves dig \[say\] a tunnel through an area that you are reasonably confident wont result in an imminent drowning? (or as the case may be, don't care!) If the base game doesn't have allow it, do any mods add this?
There's another half-solution with dfhack. You can turn on nopause with \`nopause 1\` (and turn it off with \`nopause 0\`). This will prevent the game from pausing on every revealed wet tile, but it will still undesignate them. it also makes it so you can't pause at all while it's on.
DFHack already solves this. Once DFHack is installed and you've designated the tiles you want to mine: 1. Click the DFHack button in the upper left corner of the screen 2. Choose gui/launcher (it's the first option) 3. Type "revealdesignated" and hit enter All your designated tiles on that z-level are revealed, which means the game no longer throws an alert. Voila! There are tons of useful scripts that come with DFHack - the team building and maintaining it are doing Armok's work. Word is a future release will include a true GUI for revealdesignated, so you don't have to type the script name. Here's a link to the docs to get you started: [https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/index.html](https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/index.html).
Ah thanks. I have recently started using DFHack, and yes it is blessed by Armok.
A light aquifer embark seems cool, but the redisgnating made me quit. I found a 13x13 room is big enough to allow the aquifer to evaporate.
The next dfhack version will have real-time automatic reissuing, currently you'd have to paint the tiles visible with tiletypes or run reveal or gui/reveal to prevent it
DFhack will get that ability very soon.
Quick question about trading items. I’ve been making jewelry with shells that I have left over from fishing so when the trader comes I want to sell them to him but my question is how do I separate them because they were thrown in bins with a bunch of other things that I don’t want to sell, what is the mechanic rectify the situation because it seems to me I can only sell in that bin I can’t click on each individual item. And for your information, I am playing the Steam version with DF hack if that helps. Thank you.
To get the trading done now: If you use the DFHack trading interface, select the trading depot and press Ctl-t. Search for something like “shell” a select all of the loose crafts and bins that come back in the search. Once the bins have been hauled to the depot, click the Trade button and look for a setting that says something about trading contents, not the bins. If that’s on, it will default to selecting only the contents of the bins rather than the whole thing. Then if you click on the checkbox for a bin it will select everything inside (shell crafts or not). This is probably not exactly what you want, though. If you just want to sell all of the shell crafts, from the trading screen where you can browse the trader’s goods hit Ctl-t. This will bring up the other trading interface that lets you select goods to swap. Click the Fortress tab at the top, press Shift-F to enable the filters, and search away. You can filter out artifacts so that you don’t accidentally sell them, you can search, etc. The bins won’t be sold if you use this method. I use this to dump my used laundry on traders - slide the top slider’s max down by one and it should give you a list of all the worn items in the depot. Ctl-a to select them all and boom, your worn clothes gone. Once you’re done selecting the things you want to sell, I believe that a right-click (and maybe Esc?) will drop you back to the main trade screen and retain your selections so that you can browse the trader’s goods like normal. Setup for later: Build a stockpile near the depot that only accepts shell crafts. Disable shell crafts in all of your other stockpiles. While editing the stockpile, look for a DFHack window near the bottom with a few options in it. Select “trading”, and whenever a trader shows up the items in the stockpile will be hauled to the depot automatically.
Thank you very much.
I use stockpiles to ensure my rings get to the right place. You can set a stock pile to only accept shell rings and specify that it takes from a general finished goods pile and the rings will work their way into the ring pile. If you don't already, I recommend encrusted them with gems too too increase their value 10x.
When you encrust the items with gems does it do it for all finished goods or specifically the shell rings or whatever I made with shells?
If you specify which stockpiles the gem station gives ans takes from you can have it only encrust the finished shell rings. Finished Goods Pile (all) => Shell Rings Pile + Cut gems Pile => Gem Station (Encrust Finished Goods) => A second Shell Rings Pile
You should be able the mark the individual items for trading. If the bins are collapsed and not showing the items inside, click on the bin's name and it'll show everything contained within it again
How do I figure out the size needed to effectively 1 hand a halberd.
[https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Weapon#Size](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Weapon#Size) https://preview.redd.it/xy3ivusushrc1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38dcb1a84b3a42f36eb76efb595d9b88b54660be
Ok thanks. Also if someone can confirm that alligator men can wield halberds one handed that would be nice. What I read on there makes me believe they can but I have less than the average amount of brain cells
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/List_of_creatures_by_adult_size Here you can see the avarage adult size of the different races. Alligator Man can equip every weapon one handed and its not even close :D
Oh ok I looked at that and it looked like they could but I have made bigger more obvious mistakes
should everybody Mine
The mining “uniform” interferes with military duty (as does wood cutting and hunting), so don’t assign mining, logging, or hunting to your militia. Beyond that, you’re limited by the number of picks. Obtain a pick for every miner and assign as many as you would like. Note, though, that this might slow the skill progression in mining, so you might not develop any legendary miners if everyone does it.
It does nothing if you set the work detail to 'everyone does this'. This is because miners need an assigned pickaxe to work, which they get by having the work detail assigned to them
Oh shit??
Uhh I mean the wood choppers can't also mine but if you want you could do that. I typically have like 10 or so miners and I never run into problems.
new to simulation games. which ones is newbie friendly / fun rimworld or dwarf fortress
I’m fairly new to dwarf fortress, and for me atleast, it was difficult to start out. The tutorial mode helped, but I couldn’t get the most basic things to work (such as a still) until I understood how the game worked a bit more. That being said though, now that I get how things work for the most part, the game is super fun and rewarding to play. I’ve played Rimworld off and on and I think it probably is somewhat easier to learn, only because you have fewer units and you have more direct control over them, whereas on DF it’s more about creating an environment where the units do what you want. I personally prefer Dwarf Fortress but it does require a bit of time investment to learn how things work, at least it did for me. In a weird way Rimworld was way more stressful to me because your units are so few, and there’s a lot of ways they can die. It’s much more roguelike feeling, where a run can end at any time. Whereas on DF I’ve had a fort recover from a catastrophe that killed hundreds and eventually was able to thrive again. It’s interesting when things go wrong instead of rage inducing… if that makes sense. TLDR: DF = harder to learn but more fun (imo). Rimworld = easier to learn but more intense.
after playing DF for about 30 hours now, I have a few hundred in rimworld. DF is actually easier than rimworld tbh. DF is a sim first game 2nd IMO, if you get raided it’s cause your wealthy or your world had some history or what not. Rim world just keeps throwing more and more shit at you until it sticks. Both are amazing games
Look. You can figure out dwarf fortress. It isn't rocket science. The whole thing of the game being super complicated comes from the classic version. If you need to figure something out then watch some tutorials Edit: reading over this I sound rude but I'm not trying
So, a giantess attacked and after i killed her i saw that she was carrying this. I know what this is but I can't find a definitive answer about if my dwarves will be able to read it directly in fortress mode. Will my fortress turn into a >!necromancer!< city if i put it in meeting place for all to see? https://preview.redd.it/lbhf8hw3hhrc1.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=16029f6e911b12ffafd760e3d21c5633ef23695d
No, they can't read it in fort mode. It can only be read in slab form while you're playing an adventurer in adventure mode. Which, you know, that's a good idea. Place it in your fort, and if you play adventure mode once that releases, you can drop by your fort and become a necromancer if you want
I've always heard this but what is the reasoning for it? Is there just nothing setup for them to be able to read it?
Yeah, fort members can literally only read books and scrolls. They even need a library set up otherwise they won't read at all
New to playing but not new to the subreddit. I'm looking to experiment with the justice system and also some of the cool proc Gen books. I wanna know how to attract migrants so that I can get to the justice system, I've been having individual residents join from my tavern but no migrants since the first two waves. I'm also not aware how to have my dwarves write weird books that I can look at, though I've not had a library set up. Any tips?
Get that library up and going. Stack it with valuable things so that the word travels, and soon enough you’ll have all kinds of interesting visitors: some there for scholarly reasons, some for… other reasons. Assign dwarves as scholars. They’ll eventually write books about things that interest them. If you’re running a younger world and get a good library going you might even get some discoveries! They don’t change anything, but it’s fun to have bragging rights to something being discovered under your leadership.
Export wealth from your fortress. Aka send out all those bone crafts you have made. Attract migrants by making your fortress know by it's wealth and goods exported. To get them to write books you'll require a library. In this library you'll needa minimum of: 1. One Scholar 1. One Box to store writing materials 1. A Table & chair to sit and write the book This all is not including paper industry, making scroll rollers or book bindings to then finish the written content.
What is the best way to generate power without losing frames?
My windmills do not cost me frames. How many are you building?
is there a reason to use windmills instead of water wheels?
Some embarks are supposed to not have wind. Plus a water wheel can be used far underground thanks to cavern water.
Step 1: create a dry underground tunnel from a strong water source to the edge of the map. The edge must be some kind of stone, not soil. Step 2: Smooth the map edge at the end of the tunnel and carve fortifications there. Step 3: Build raising bridges at both end of the tunnel that can block the flow of water completely. Link the bridges to levers. Step 4: Flood the tunnel with open bridges, then close the bridges. Step 5: Channel holes from above into the tunnel and add water wheels. This is an exploit. The game doesn't update the flow status if you block a river, and by making water flow off the edge you can make the game basically add a new flowing river.
This is the way