Dwarf Fortress

[Corel]

So this game currently is strangely addictive for a number of reasons. I think mostly because it's like a combination of Dungeon Keeper with extreme Macro and Micro Management, the stuff you can do in this game is insane. Want to activate a switch that opens up a trapdoor that traps some unsuspecting creatures in a slowly flooding room? Check. Make a multi-level housing district and path ways to find optimal logistical positioning? Check. Hand pick Dwarfs to carry a number of skills, join the army, train them and pick their inventory? Check. Macro everything and everyone to your needs? Got that too.

You would think that the ASCII graphics would put you off, but after 20 minutes or so I stopped caring about them and found them incredibly endearing. I felt really sad that I was forced to butcher a puppy for my dwarfs to survive the Winter, as the dwarf slowly dragged him off to the Butchers and a "?" kept flashing for the puppy. :(

So here's a picture of my fortress with some annotations because I imagine it's pretty confusing on it's own:

http://imgur.com/e9R6P.png

1 - Just to the East of the big 1 is the first residential area that was built, it was originally just a single row of houses then I decided that it really should just be made to a communal street with a dining hall at the end of it. The dining hall used to be where the giant yellow 5 was, but decided to move it for military purposes. By the way you can assign Dwarf's their own indivudal rooms in this game. It's stupidly in depth.

2 - The second residential area being made, in response to site 3 being built. This site will be further developed as I get more immigrants.

3 - The newer industrial site that was built. Industrial areas contain workshops that dwarfs of specific skills (The more proficient, the better) can make a variety of items like weapons, trap devices, instruments, beds etc.) Decided to put on here so that it was closer to the stockpiles and the workers of both area 1 and 2 could get easier access to both. That purple stuff is the rotting of corpses, you get used to seeing that pretty quickly.

4 - Older industrial area that was first built.

5 - This area and South of the main road is the military defence which are barracks and my Guard Captain's office and quarters, best place to put them I think seeing that is where the entrance to the place is. This is where you can assign squads to sleep and spar with one another. There is also an archery range on the Southern road. The big blue block just West of the big yellow 5 is the trade depot where other civilisations can come and trade with me.

6- North of the yellow 6 are the fields which have their own seasonal crops which is one of the main reasons why my Dwarfs have not starved to death (yet). Also my main stock piles of food, wood, refuse and ammunition are also here.

7 - The main river flowing past my fort, and the source of lots of fishing. I think as times get more difficult and armies start to siege me I will channel the water into some sort of moat with a drawbridge. If I REALLY put some thought into it, I would set up a mechanical lever in the fort to unleash the entire water so it swept upwards and trapped/washed the opposing force away. However testing such a thing could be quite difficult!

Quite a wordy post, but this is not even touching the surface of this game.

But really, 5 megabytes and free download (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/) is a sure game to try. Be warned though that the amount of stuff to learn is INSANE. I've been playing for a few days wiki'ing everything (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Main_Page) to make things work, and I'm still finding new things out.

Also, I have the potential for a crazy cat lady.

http://imgur.com/JnBLV.png

[Loyal]

This page (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Your_first_fortress) was very useful for me while starting out.

How the hell did you get the screen resolution that high? All I can manage is this puny default.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3592/dwarffortgold.png
It figures that the one time I choose to embark without an anvil I get a metric dwarfton of ores of all shapes and sizes.

[Corel]

This page (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Your_first_fortress) was very useful for me while starting out.

How the hell did you get the screen resolution that high? All I can manage is this puny default.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3592/dwarffortgold.png
It figures that the one time I choose to embark without an anvil I get a metric dwarfton of ores of all shapes and sizes.

Ah yes, that was the first thing I used too.

I wish the resolution was that high; I just took screenshots of each screen and shoved them together in paint.

You can't see it on that screenshot but I've got a load of mountain rock up North about 3-4 times the height of that picture to go through yet. Need to come up with a plan how I'm going to make them logistics work.

A Dwarf with no skills at all became crazy and locked himself in the Dwarfcraft Workshop for 20 minutes then proceeded to go insane and subsequently get the shit beaten out of him by the Guards who then went to the Dining Hall to get drunk. All in a day's work for the Fuzz.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

You should re-direct that river so that it flows through your castle, then you can fish in safety even while under siege. And build a MASSIVE wall all around farms/forests, for the same reason.

But there again I've never played this game, looks too complicated, so pay me no mind. I like the idea of using the river as a weapon though, sounds suitably awesome.

[Loyal]

then you can fish in safety even while under siege.Define safety. (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Carp)

[Jenwrath]

wow, the depth this game has is amazing. sadly, the graphics are beyond bad for me.

nearly everything looks exactly the same, its making it rediculously hard to give this game a chance.

are there any mods out there that update the graphics to at least regular nintendo quality? i mean, given how complex the game is coming across to me, it makes sense to keep graphics simple, along with given how its.....free and all. but cmon, this is awful.

[Roland]

The (unofficial) newest version lets you resize the window and increases/decreases the tile count to fit.

I remember doing a Let's Play of this a few months ago on Random Insanity (Gamefaqs). Even after five game years and around 20-24 updates the interest in it was pretty much nil. Then the purge monster ate the topic. I mean to be fair the most interesting things that happened overall were the goblin ambushes (two of which had or were led by humans), but still.

Anywho, I'm waiting for the next version and a new computer before I play the game again. My current one is around 6 years old and I'm surprised it hasn't just given up by now.

[Kepor]

wow, the depth this game has is amazing. sadly, the graphics are beyond bad for me.

nearly everything looks exactly the same, its making it rediculously hard to give this game a chance.

are there any mods out there that update the graphics to at least regular nintendo quality? i mean, given how complex the game is coming across to me, it makes sense to keep graphics simple, along with given how its.....free and all. but cmon, this is awful.

There are several tilesets. I think Mayday's set is pretty popular, although there are compatibility issues with it.

And the graphics aren't too bad. After awhile you don't really notice it. Heck, all I see is blond, brunette, redhead...

[PyrosNine]

Pyros understands that the construction is actually three dee, and is shown pictures of three dee on the Let's Play on Something Awful.

Pyros no understand...what...Why are elephants so evil? And not Hippos? Lava traps? Boatmurder?

I'm a play Minecraft instead and just pretend to go crazy and build a golden engraving of an god-dwarfess kicking an Elephant into a thousand pieces, and then if I run out of materials go mad and drown myself in lava.

I guess it makes sense for the Dwarves to go crazy at the drop of a hat: Elves are far too sane and sober and live in high places, so obviously their opposites have to live underground and utterly insane and sloshed out of their minds.

[McTahr]

I tried this out, but just couldn't get into it. I've thoroughly enjoyed ADOM, another ASCII fantasy type, but I just was never the Dungeon Master type.

The sheer detail you can go to in this game is just absolutely stunning though, and I really wish I had the time to focus on it.

[Wigmund]

God, I need to restart playing this game. Burned myself out awhile back and now the urge is returning. Time to start making horrific death traps for all those goblins, kobolds, marauding animals, elves, nobles, and whatever else pisses me off at the time.

I guess it makes sense for the Dwarves to go crazy at the drop of a hat: Elves are far too sane and sober and live in high places, so obviously their opposites have to live underground and utterly insane and sloshed out of their minds.

You obviously have never met the Elves of Dwarf Fortress. The cannibalistic, tree-hugging, trade-miser fucks. Only thing they're good for is drowning their caravans and making elf-bone jewelry.

[Loyal]

Y'know what I don't get? The elves sell you almost nothing but wood and wood byproducts, yet if you show them so much as a splinter they make short jokes and piss off.

[Jagos]

They're the only hippies in the universe?

[Thadius]

Oh yes do I love me some Dwarf Fortress. I've got a fort goin' that's got TWO guardian dragons that will probably snap at any moment and start killing everything. I've got ten champion wrestlers on call that can tear goblins limb from limb, one of whom is the MAYOR. I've channeled the underground river to run up to the surface by the miracle that is a perpetual motion device. If I come under siege, I just flood the whole damn place. I'm building crossbows out of goblin femurs and shooting bolts made of their toes. I'm also mining out the depths of the earth looking for the Hidden Fun Stuff.

...Mine is the fort that does not die, no matter how hard I try to kill it. At this point, I am trying to lose, and the fort won't die for me. For a game that's supposedly easy to lose, it just won't let me!

[Shyria Dracnoir]

I STILL can't figure out whether to call that a fail or a win, Thad.

I'd like to get into this, but I'm sort of scared of all the detail involved. Besides it's finals time down here so I really shouldn't be slacking off now.

[Magus]

I really couldn't get past the interface for this game. I'd love to try it more as one of my friends was next to ecstatic about it but unless somebody comes up with an intuitive mod for it or something I'll probably be in the dark for the rest of my life.

[Loyal]

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/9732/dwarffortmagma.png

It's probably taken an entire year to get this all the way over here.

[DFM]

I tried to play this again about a month ago and dug a hole in the middle of the desert that wasn't big enough to hold any of my supplies or dwarves and nobody was happy with the hole I dug so they roamed the surface of the desert and went mad, abandoning their wagon and fighting goblins with their teeth.

My second fortress was a bigger hole that I filled with chairs until nobody could leave.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Always been keen to try but from what I've heard the learning curve is gigantic- especially coming in now when so much stuff has been added. Easier to get into the earlier you got into it I've heard.

[Corel]

Always been keen to try but from what I've heard the learning curve is gigantic- especially coming in now when so much stuff has been added. Easier to get into the earlier you got into it I've heard.

The link Loyal gave is a good starting place to follow, from there you can just build in any direction as you like and just Wiki whatever you don't know. If you can look past the graphics and somewhat clunky interfaces it's a really rewarding experience.

After finishing the "My First Dungeon" section I decided to start mass producing furniture and building something up resembling an Army. Up to 79 Dwarves now. I want to start setting up a drainage and water system to be pumped through the fortress but with the River Pressure this might blow up in my face. Also a second floor and I can make fortifications for my Crossbow men to pick enemies and Thieves off.

Oh, I would say that it might take a few World Generations/location to go through until you are happy with where you start. Rivers and inside soil are always good. (Unless you customised your starting pack).

[Odjn]

I decided eventually someone would do a graphics version of it and then I'd play.

[Viridis]

I decided eventually someone would do a graphics version of it and then I'd play.
There is an isometric version (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=43260.0) in the works. Current in the alpha release, I think.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I just tried downloading it actually. I couldn't figure it out to save my life. I did find some videos though with some guy talking through the entirety of the start up, so I have somewhat more of an idea now. Still giving me headaches though, so I'll try it again later and see if I can actually manage to get anywhere with it.

It would be easier with those isometric graphics though, or even just a decent control scheme. So much text it's mind boggling.

[Loyal]

I decided eventually someone would do a graphics version of it and then I'd play.For what it's worth, DF already takes up a fair bit of memory in just processing power. And considering that just boosting the tile limit from 80x25 to 120x50 dropped my framerate from 90 to 10 (then again, I also messed up on scaling up the window size to match so what do I know) I shudder to think what actual graphics might do to it.

[01d55]

For what it's worth, DF already takes up a fair bit of memory in just processing power. And considering that just boosting the tile limit from 80x25 to 120x50 dropped my framerate from 90 to 10 (then again, I also messed up on scaling up the window size to match so what do I know) I shudder to think what actual graphics might do to it.

Not much, probably. Most of the calculations would be offloaded to the special processor designed specifically for doing graphics while the CPU does other stuff. Also memory and processing power are different things; graphics would certainly increase the memory demand (but not all that much, if you restrict yourself to simple textures.)

[Odjn]

Yeah, I'd rather play with 8 bit or less graphics than no graphics at all, and if I couldn't play the game with those it's pretty much not worth playing for me.

[synkr0nized]

I can't read about this game without thinking about Boatmurdered. But man are elephants terrible.

[Niveras]

I remember doing a Let's Play of this a few months ago on Random Insanity (Gamefaqs). Even after five game years and around 20-24 updates the interest in it was pretty much nil.

The secret to DF Let's Plays is to concoct the most preposterous reasons for why things occur, then a good dose of insanity as a solution to the most mundane problems. There's a lot of "amazing (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=42702.msg790500#msg790500)" things that can "happen (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39897.0)" if you take a few minutes (hours) to look at the history of a world, or modified the materials and cultures in the game with unexpected results, but it takes some imagination to fill in the gaps to make them truly awesome.

[Thadius]

Oh, I probably failed to mention this...

Those two dragons I captured? Yeah, one is missing an eye and a rear claw, the other is missing a few toes on the left front foot.

...And one is male and the other is female.

Stationed constantly at the entrance. Bored as all hell.

Yes, I am trying to kill myself by breeding dragons. I don't know if it can be done, but I will damn well try for SCIENCE!

Armok only KNOWS what the caravans think when my fort's time for importing stuff comes 'round.

Oh and Loyal? The reason the elves get upset is because we're not harvesting trees the elven way. There is a method that only the elves know, and the mere thought that anybody else would have the gall to try taking the wood offends them.

[Odjn]

Oh, I probably failed to mention this...

Those two dragons I captured? Yeah, one is missing an eye and a rear claw, the other is missing a few toes on the left front foot.

...And one is male and the other is female.

Stationed constantly at the entrance. Bored as all hell.

Yes, I am trying to kill myself by breeding dragons. I don't know if it can be done, but I will damn well try for SCIENCE!

Armok only KNOWS what the caravans think when my fort's time for importing stuff comes 'round.

Oh and Loyal? The reason the elves get upset is because we're not harvesting trees the elven way. There is a method that only the elves know, and the mere thought that anybody else would have the gall to try taking the wood offends them.

Honestly killing elves is like the best part of any game.

[Thadius]

There's a funny story about that. First an elven caravan arrived, along with an ambassador. And THEN a vile force of darkness arrived. If it had happened at the same time it woulda been cool.

Three squads of goblins. Uh, guys, I don't do this, like, ever, but you could still turn back...

One squad in captured by my cage traps. Not too late!

One squad is chunky salsa by sawblade traps right after the cage traps. You could still run!

The third squad actually got some of their members past the dragons...only to have the Hammerer come out and knock the goblins like footballs back out. And the rest got toasted, turns out the dragons were just napping. I almost wished that the dragons would ignite the elven caravans, but no such luck.

...We should probably do a Dwarf Fortress LP, what with the interest this thread is gathering. It would probably end in fire in year two. Or three.

[phil_]

...We should probably do a Dwarf Fortress LP, what with the interest this thread is gathering. It would probably end in fire in year two. Or three.No one would understand what was happening except those who have their own fortresses to manage.

[Kepor]

It would inevitably be compared to Boatmurdered.

[Thadius]

Ah, but we could leave notes next to the levers that operate the doomsday traps.

...Although I'm not sure how useful that would be. I have one lever set to release the stray animals, a series of levers set to the watery grave weapon, one lever for the drawbridge, and one that would flood the dwarf's rooms with magma.

...On second thought, notes for the doomsday mechanisms would be a GOOD IDEA. We should make it mandatory that if you build a doomsday device, you have to leave a note telling us how it works.

And there are PLENTY of tilesets out there that would decipher it for the non-dwarfs among us. If an LP is made, I foresee the tileset thing being put up to a vote.

[Loyal]

You know what's worse than getting absolutely zero migrants in your first year?

Getting 21 in the next. All at once. I don't have enough food or beds for you bastards!

[Thadius]

Oh I love getting no migrants off the bat. Gives me time to set up everything without worrying about 'proper' sleeping spaces.

You think it's bad now with an immigrant influx?

Wait till the taxkeeper or whatever his title is shows up and imposes prices on everything. If you haven't been minting coins constantly, he will mess your perfect little system up. He will evict people from their own ROOMS. The only useful thing he does is let you know how much everything is worth in Dwarfbucks.

And he does it all from the comfort of his three-room suite in the heart of the mountain with a wonderful tomb. Meanwhile everyone else starves because they can't afford FOOD.

I'm surprised the Royal Guard hasn't ripped his head off and passed it on to a craftdwarf so he can make a totem out of it.

[Corel]

...We should probably do a Dwarf Fortress LP, what with the interest this thread is gathering. It would probably end in fire in year two. Or three.

Yeah, I was thinking that we should probably use a visualiser for Non-DF to understand what's going on and we can annotate the pictures too and let people give ideas on how they want things to go. We should do a Boatmurdered LP style where we take turns in playing a year. Have to pick a very interesting starting position however.

Also on the Boatmurdered LP, I cracked up when they released the lava into the countryside and they combated it with water.

Edit: So my Ranger and his trusty hunting dog got attacked by a bear, ending with him being knocked out and the dog limping away. One of my soliders decided to then wrestle the bear into submission whilst they dragged the Ranger's battered body back to the fort. Unfortunately he died of blood loss in hospital.

Also, losing IS fun!

[Loyal]

Boatmurdered is wonderful, but I have to say Headshoots is moreso. It includes, among other things, a visit to the bowels of hell, a giant engine of magma dispension, and a dwarf running through lava to pummel a kobold to dust... with its backpack.

[Thadius]

I've got a worldgen file kicking around on my hard drive somewhere that gives a position with quite a few things. Most notably: LAVA. Also sand, dirt, limestone, river, endless chasm, and iron. No aquifer though, and it is freaking cold six months out of twelve.

[Melfice]

The interface is weird to me.
I'll try it again some other time, but it's so... confusing. I'm not even put off by the "graphics", although I DID step over to Mayday's, but it's just... the controls.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Holy shit I think I'm getting the hang of this shit!!! I've dug out a fortress, zoned a bedroom (containing actual beds!), created a farm (I THINK it's growing stuff...), and have massive food stores next to a bitchin' dining room!

I even have actual doors!! Now I need to figure out how to dig up and down, brew more alcohol, and start clearing out refuse. A well would also be a nice feature, and some fishing.

The only major problem I've encountered so far is water-logged rock, which I thought I'd avoided in choosing my site, but then ran immediately into. D'oh!

[Thadius]

Designate some stairs up (or down), build a still, and zone a refuse stockpile that is 'technically' outside so miasma doesn't become an issue. The still is going to eat through your barrel supply like candy, though, so make sure you have a carpenter's shop dedicated to building them!

A well has to be built over a source of clean water, with a chain and bucket. You also need Fisherdwarves and a fishery to fish.

'zat answer your questions?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Well I knew how to deal with refuse anyway. The stairs is trickier, since I still can't figure out how to increase/decrease my elevation to go up and down levels. I know there's a button for it somewhere, but not sure which button or where.

[Malek]

If you're using the ASCII graphics, the button is the same as the character representing the stairs, namely < or >.

[Loyal]

AKA, shift-, to go up, shift-. to go down.

Each downward stairway has to have an up-stairway below it to match, and vice-versa. Up-down stairs, obviously, serve both at once, though you still need the apporpriate stair type on the next Z-level to make use of it.

You could also use ramps, which are functionally identical once actually placed (Exception: trade caravans cannot travel up or down stairs and must use ramps. This only makes a difference if and when you decide to put your Trade Depot indoors) but are a bit tricky to place by comparison.

Extremely important for well building: water pressure. (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Water_pressure) If you want to avoid this entirely I suppose you could craft a bunch of buckets and zone a "pond" (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Activity_zone) under the well site using your haulers.

I had my first Strange Mood a short time ago... Unfortunately, it was a Glassmaker and there was no sand on the map. He went mad as a result and pranced about his workshop till he died of thirst. His clothes will be sold to the next caravan.

[Arhra]

Boatmurdered is wonderful, but I have to say Headshoots is moreso. It includes, among other things, a visit to the bowels of hell, a giant engine of magma dispension, and a dwarf running through lava to pummel a kobold to dust... with its backpack.
You forgot the bloodthirsty monument to the fallen that is TRIBUTE.

[Thadius]

Be fair to TRIBUTE! Half those people flung themselves into the thing to see how it worked inside. And quite a few more deaths were due to the thing not possessing a roof on some parts.

[Loyal]

I don't think TRIBUTEWEAPON was ever successfully fired, was it? It was the LHC of Dwarf Fortress.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Think I'm gona start over already, this Fortress is in a terrible location. If I had properly checked the elevation around this area, I would have noticed the lake on top of the mountain I tunneled directly under. All it would take is one wrong mining operation and I'll end up flooding my whole fortress. Also space is limited and I haven't properly considered my expansion options.

Looks like this fort was a fail, but fun. Least I know where I went wrong now.

[Thadius]

Losing is not only fun, it's also mandatory. In half of all games, it's the player's fault in some obscure way or another. Be it pissing off the elves, digging too deep, or failing to take proper precautions for when the volcano you settled next to erupts, it is your fault.

The only way it isn't your fault is if a megabeast shows up.

[Melfice]

I've got a vague sense of what I'm doing now, but... mostly what I'm doing is building up to the point where I'm about to lay down my farm, to find out there's no suitable soil in the nearby region and abandoning my fortress for another location. =/

Frustrating, but surprisingly, it's interesting.

[Loyal]

When you're on the embark screen, look on the right to see what rock types it has. The ones with brown text are farm-suitable.

Alternatively, if/when you learn to operate pumps and water flow, you can try for irrigation, (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Irrigation) which will make any rock suitable for farming.

While we're on the subject of rocks, White is sedimentary rock, which is typically very nice for all the useful ores (lots of iron) and such it has,

Light grey is igneous intrusive, which has copper and other things, though you'll probably want some sediment to go with it as Iron is a bit rarer here, and copper sucks for weapons and armor.

Dark grey is igneous extrusive, which in addition to being mostly similar to igneous intrusive in terms of ores and such, usually indicates volcanic activity or at least a pool of magma underground somewhere.

You could also try Embarking with extra alcohol and importing all necessary plants via the three caravans that roll about.

[Melfice]

Yeah, I just figured it out.
Just got me an area with a nice amount of peat. Don't remember if I've got much in the way of sedimentary ground, but we'll see eventually if I can't get some iron-works set up.

[Ryong]

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I have, like, some stockpiles, a few workshops, some barracks and a dining room. I believe the barracks have been placed terribly, but I have no idea, really. Also, my farm needs water. There's a nearby lake. I hope I don't flood anything.

Edit: Okay, seriously, how do I cancel a job? I want a dwarf to start chopping at a different set of trees, but I've no idea how to tell him to stop chopping the initial set. I also don't know how to tell a dwarf to do a job he has no skills in, so, yeah.

[Loyal]

I found a couple (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/How_to_safely_start_fortress_mode) of pretty useful guides (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Quickstart_guide) for getting started. One of 'em includes a save file you can load.

EDIT: One of my miners, in a fey mood, went and made a bed... out of 3 pieces of shale. I'm tempted to make the asshole sleep on it for making me worry that I'd lose my best miner, but then I suppose I could just give it to a particularly bothersome noble.

[Kerensky287]

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I have, like, some stockpiles, a few workshops, some barracks and a dining room. I believe the barracks have been placed terribly, but I have no idea, really. Also, my farm needs water. There's a nearby lake. I hope I don't flood anything.

Edit: Okay, seriously, how do I cancel a job? I want a dwarf to start chopping at a different set of trees, but I've no idea how to tell him to stop chopping the initial set. I also don't know how to tell a dwarf to do a job he has no skills in, so, yeah.

Best place to put a farm: Loam or some other kind of dirt. Rock sucks because then it needs watering. I've never actually irrigated a farm so I can't help you there.

To un-designate some trees, press D (for designate) then X (for "cancel designation") then select the trees you want to stop cutting.

To make a dwarf do a new job, press V (for "view") near the dwarf, center the cursor over it, press P (for preferences? dunno), then L (for labour) and then scroll down the menu and find the jobs you want. I generally have all my dudes on Masonry and Stone Engraving in addition to their normal jobs because I occasionally build huge towering structures with no warning.

Just a note for the new jobs thing: you need a Pick if you want a new dwarf to mine, and you need an Axe if you want a new dwarf to do woodcutting. Both can generally be traded at the Depot from a Dwarf or Human caravan, and both can be made at a Metalsmithing workshop.

I actually started a new game fairly recently. Found a totally ideal area - there's a Magma Pipe right nearby, with a flowing river, and it's built into a mountain with flux stones and ores out the yin yang. Of course then I had to muck it all up by opening a mountain-borne Aquifer into the Magma Pipe (and open air) by accident, so now I can't play the game without it lagging to 5fps.

EDIT: Also, I saw something earlier about starting a Let's Play DF thing (now vanished mysteriously!) and I think it'd be an awesome idea that I would support.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I just finished reading Boatmurdered. Holy fuck that was awesome. Gota be the funniest Let's Play ever done.

Now to return to my own fortress and get some work done.

[Amake]

Each downward stairway has to have an up-stairway below it to match, and vice-versa. Up-down stairs, obviously, serve both at once, though you still need the apporpriate stair type on the next Z-level to make use of it. Was it just me who got a flashback to that Ernie strip where Ernie talks to a carpenter about his broken stairs?

"Did you want one that goes up or down?"
"I want one that goes both ways. O_o"
"Oh, damn. That's not gonna be cheap."

So anyway, what's with the control scheme in this game? Why isn't everything right click like in Eve Online? The unlikely key presses is what puts me off, more than the graphics.

[Ryong]

Best place to put a farm: Loam or some other kind of dirt. Rock sucks because then it needs watering. I've never actually irrigated a farm so I can't help you there.

Man, I had a farm of plump helmets underground and the farmer wouldn't grow anything, so I read some guides and they say it has to be muddy.

[Melfice]

Man, I had a farm of plump helmets underground and the farmer wouldn't grow anything, so I read some guides and they say it has to be muddy.

Muddy or soil. (http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Soil)
Soil, if you have it, is by far easiest.

EDIT: Not sure if this is a blessing or a curse, but so far, all I've been digging in is marble.
I've found at least one spot that MAY have some sand for me to build farms on, but so far, it's been marble all the way. I'ma get rich when the trade caravan comes along. XD
EDITED: Yes! Sand, indeed! Plus, I've run into some Microcline.

[PyrosNine]

I am doing things and I can dig in three dimensions but getting food has proven troublesome beyond fishing. I can order the building of farmland, but they just ignore it as they go on their lazy, buildy, ways. And I find that finding some of them work is hard as I'm either not sure what exactly a fish cleaner does or find that I need someone to finish the second part of a job but he won't because his major job is is fishing.

I have taken to giving them all the mining ability at the get go, so when I order stuff built, I already have a nice laid out fortress within a minute or two, then I set them to their tasks.

[Loyal]

It's a real shame you can't tame Harpies. One of them stumbled into a Cage Trap I threw in the wilderness.

Also a shame that you can't breed them, what with being all-female.

[Melfice]

It's a real shame you can't tame Harpies. One of them stumbled into a Cage Trap I threw in the wilderness.

Also a shame that you can't breed them, what with being all-female.

... set forth and experiment? *nudgenudgewinkwink*
All for the sake of science! :P

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I am doing things and I can dig in three dimensions but getting food has proven troublesome beyond fishing. I can order the building of farmland, but they just ignore it as they go on their lazy, buildy, ways. And I find that finding some of them work is hard as I'm either not sure what exactly a fish cleaner does or find that I need someone to finish the second part of a job but he won't because his major job is is fishing.

I have taken to giving them all the mining ability at the get go, so when I order stuff built, I already have a nice laid out fortress within a minute or two, then I set them to their tasks.

Are you sure their labours are set up correctly? Check that they have farming actually enabled, and turn off any other tasks that may take precedent over farming. And personally I don't find fishing all that useful anyway, but if you want to know what labours need to be on for a Dwarf to do a certain job withing a certain workshop/whatever, then just look at what labour it says is needed when first building it. For example if you try to build a Bowyers workshop then you need somebody with crossbow making enacted to build it, so you know you need someone with that same labour to actually work there once it's built.

But yeah I seem to be having trouble with my farms as well. I built 3 to start off with early, so I could plant 3 different seed types, but I seem to have already run out of all but plump helmets. Most distressing. Also I'm now out of meat as well, I really need a hunter or some traps. And I really could use some immigrants already, there's too much work for only 7 Dwarfs!

Still, least I have plenty of booze. Yep, ain't no problems with alcohol in THIS Fortress! And I figured out how to redirect rivers and created a moat with a retractable drawbridge, giving me almost inpenetrable defence.

[Melfice]

[...]giving me almost inpenetrable defence.

Watch as that plan blows up right in your face in a couple of (ingame) months. :P

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Probably, but for now at least there's only 1 way in or out, and you have to cross the bridge, so it should work.

[Malek]

I am doing things and I can dig in three dimensions but getting food has proven troublesome beyond fishing. I can order the building of farmland, but they just ignore it as they go on their lazy, buildy, ways.

Are you sure their labours are set up correctly? Check that they have farming actually enabled, and turn off any other tasks that may take precedent over farming.
If you've done this and it's still not working, check that you've also assigned what seeds you want planted on your farms for the current season.


But yeah I seem to be having trouble with my farms as well. I built 3 to start off with early, so I could plant 3 different seed types, but I seem to have already run out of all but plump helmets. Most distressing.
What was done with the harvested crops? If they were used in cooking, then you didn't get more seeds. If they were brewed then you should have gotten more seeds, else they might just have been placed in a barrel and left unused.

[Wigmund]

And I figured out how to redirect rivers and created a moat with a retractable drawbridge, giving me almost inpenetrable defence.

I've found that wide deep pits are better than water-filled moats for ridding oneself of invaders. Too many that want to kill and eat the dorfs can swim, so letting them fall so that their legs are broken (6 levels deep) or they hit terminal velocity and splatter (10+ levels deep, and yes they will splatter on impact) is more effective, especially when the pit's about 20 spaces across (two full retractable bridges). Also, it's fun to throw prisoners into the pit to see how many times it takes to kill them.

Fun Story: I got rid of some Elf traders using a 6-level deep pit. Their pack animals exploded, one trader died of injuries several seconds after impact, the other trader had his legs destroyed. The broken-legged trader could drag himself a couple of spaces and then would pass out. I ended up caging him when passed out on a trap after crawling down the pit's cleaning access tunnel and back to the entrance where his tragedy began. I put him in my zoo for several seasons until he died.

I'll also dig a trench around the entire map about 5 spaces from the edge to funnel invaders and traders into one or two openings that I'll have extensively defended. That way I'll also have free access to all the resources on the map without worry of ambushers (since they spawn within five spaces of the edge and then will head in looking for targets). What's great is that everything is crowded in close to the edge until they enter the fort area, so kobolds tend to be discovered by marmots.

[Loyal]

I'll also dig a trench around the entire map about 5 spaces from the edge to funnel invaders and traders into one or two openings that I'll have extensively defended. That way I'll also have free access to all the resources on the map without worry of ambushers (since they spawn within five spaces of the edge and then will head in looking for targets). What's great is that everything is crowded in close to the edge until they enter the fort area, so kobolds tend to be discovered by marmots.That isn't anywhere near as Fun and you know it.

[edit] Oh hey, subterranean zombie/skeletal fire imps. This'll be good.

[Niveras]

So anyway, what's with the control scheme in this game? Why isn't everything right click like in Eve Online? The unlikely key presses is what puts me off, more than the graphics. [/FONT]

Because the game's in alpha and Toady (the game's sole programmer) is primarily interested in getting all the meat he wanted into the game before he polishes the interface to be more user-friendly. There's also some argument in the community about just how user-friendly they want him to make it (specifically whether it'll always be ascii/2d tile sets or a more 3D interface), but I imagine at some point you'll be able to use context-sensitive menus and the mouse to do more than designate tiles. But it could be a long time before he gets around to it.

Incidentally, this next major release is taking longer than he expected, but someone in the community has put together a list (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AT8EQVUjrv96ZGc5cnBwOHZfMjgyY3FzZHFtanA&hl=en) of the things that are going to change. Basically, the underground layers are going to get a complete revamp in a way that makes it more exciting, dangerous, and reduces the need to find embark sites with all your preferred special features (like HFS, magma pipes, underground rivers, etc). It's also completely revamping how armies function (both from a "Dwarf mode" perspective and from a "world gen/history" perspective).

There's a lot going in with the next update and, though I've only had my eye on this for the past couple months, it sounds pretty exciting. It's "due out" sometime soon - probably January at this point - but no promises.

[Amake]

Still working on the basics eh? I was under the impression his method of design was more like putting in things as they occurred to him. I mean, you hear about features like a realistic system for digesting food and developing muscle and fat in each individual dwarf and you really have to ask if all that stuff was in the initial design document in 1990 or whenever it all began. I've had a feeling that the game is composed of a mess of pointless, indulgent features trying to emulate every particle of the natural world no matter how bloated it gets. But I admit I haven't paid any close attention.

I'm glad to hear there's a plan. Now, I'm prepared to wait.

[Melfice]

list (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AT8EQVUjrv96ZGc5cnBwOHZfMjgyY3FzZHFtanA&hl=en)

To be honest, a lot of the things on that list sound like it would make the game a lot slower, in the sense of frame rate.

Some of the things DO sound very interesting, though.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

What was done with the harvested crops? If they were used in cooking, then you didn't get more seeds. If they were brewed then you should have gotten more seeds, else they might just have been placed in a barrel and left unused.

I started brewing first, then eventually moved on to making prepared meals, but that was only once my food stores were already beginning to dwindle.

All I have left now are Pig tail seeds, though my latest immigration brough a fisher, so I've atleast been able to get a fishery up and running to give me some extra food. As long as I hold out for the next Dwarven caravan I can trade them a ton of mugs, mechanisms and cut gems for more seeds, which I requested as top priority in the first year, so I should be ok.


deep pits

I like this idea. I'll try this next time round.

At the moment though I seem to be having trouble with metalworking. I have tons of copper ore which I've set to smelt, but can't seem to turn any of it into weapons or cages for my trappers. Also how do I actually equip dwarfs with weapons? My miners and woodcutter seem to just pick up their picks and axes, but how do I go and give crossbows and swords to soldiers/hunters? And for that matter how do I even get trappers/hunters/whatever to go out and capture stuff for food?

[Melfice]

Also how do I actually equip dwarfs with weapons? My miners and woodcutter seem to just pick up their picks and axes, but how do I go and give crossbows and swords to soldiers/hunters? And for that matter how do I even get trappers/hunters/whatever to go out and capture stuff for food?

My hunter seems to have been doing this automatically. Does he actually have hunting activated? Or, maybe he's busy doing something that has a higher priority?

[Niveras]

Civilians cannot equip weapons. You can assign weapons in the military menu to dwarves, but until you activate them, they won't use them.

The exception to this are dwarves with the hunting skill enabled, who will equip the weapon type you've given them in the military screen. Note, though, that dwarves only have two hands, and in most cases they cannot (for example) use an axe for woodcutting, a pick axe for mining, and a sword for hunting all at the same time.

[Corel]

Also how do I actually equip dwarfs with weapons? My miners and woodcutter seem to just pick up their picks and axes, but how do I go and give crossbows and swords to soldiers/hunters?

You can either select it through the Military screen (m, w, and selecting the correct abbreviation for weapons and armour.) or highlight a Dwarf with v, press s and then the rest is self explanatory.

Edit: Fort is going well, over 100 Dwarves now and only had 6 or so casualties. Had a Goblin siege so I charged my oiled up Turkish wrestlers at them. One of my soldiers got headshotted in the first barrage by the Goblin Crossbowmen but the troops closed the distance and ripped them to pieces (Quite literally).

So I am now in the process of making some multi-floored outposts outside the actual fort! With the use of walls, floors and staircases I hope to station some troops in these with barracks included as a way to tackle/hold off first waves of trouble. Will be nice to have some stockpiles here too for my Hunters to make use of. Might also make a hatch back into the fort, so I can use it both as an escape route into the Fort but also as an evacuation passage for my civilians if things go wrong (Which they undoubtedly will).

[Thadius]

If your forges are powered by the raw blood of the earth itself (magma) then there should be no problem! They should be smithing away!

...More likely than not, though, you'll be needing a wood furnace to make charcoal. One unit of charcoal should fuel one job in the blacksmith/metal forging areas.

...You'll run out of wood quickly if you don't find the magma.

[Melfice]

Silly question.
If I set one (1) table as a dining hall, do all tables inside the catchment area of said first table count as the dining room? Or would I need to set all tables as dining rooms?

'Cause I've been doing it just setting one table, but... well. Better safe than sorry, right?

EDIT: Also, via [u]->[m] I set an order for 8 tables to be made. The mason finishes 6(!) and calls the order complete.
Is this normal behaviour, and does my mason simply not know how to count, or is this a glitch?
Similarly, I ordered 8 chairs and he delivered 7.

[Thadius]

Maybe he's just hungry. Or sober.

In any case, the discrepancy is small and easily filled. I'll have to try it myself later.

[Melfice]

Regarding the shortage on the order, I guess it's something built-in.
Just now, I ordered 2 cabinets, and the carpenter made 3.
EDIT: Clarifying: The orders you make are subject to... production errors, let's call it.

Still wondering on the dining-room issue, though.

[Thadius]

Oh yeah, any and all tables/chairs that are snagged by one being set as a dining room all become part of it so long as they aren't assigned to anyone or to be anything else.

This also includes all the empty space and everything that you may build in it one day.

It is the preference of many players to make the dining room the meeting room as well, however, with all the potential empty space floatin' around, many dwarves will never socialize with each other if the meeting area is too big.

A similar effect happens with barracks and beds.

[Melfice]

Oh yeah, any and all tables/chairs that are snagged by one being set as a dining room all become part of it so long as they aren't assigned to anyone or to be anything else.

Alright, awesome. Guess I don't have to worry about that any more then.!
Thanks!

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

You can either select it through the Military screen (m, w, and selecting the correct abbreviation for weapons and armour.) or highlight a Dwarf with v, press s and then the rest is self explanatory.


Ok, that makes sense. So if I find my hunters and press s I can equip them with the crossbows? Then they'll just go out hunting? Or do I need to assign the task anywhere else?



If your forges are powered by the raw blood of the earth itself (magma) then there should be no problem! They should be smithing away!

...More likely than not, though, you'll be needing a wood furnace to make charcoal. One unit of charcoal should fuel one job in the blacksmith/metal forging areas.

...You'll run out of wood quickly if you don't find the magma.

Yeah, I have no magma right now, but I did wonder about the woodburner. I shall have some wood burnt and start pumping out some weapons. How dod you actually use magma once you find it though? do you just need to channel it near to the forge or what?

EDIT; Oh and what about trappers? Presumably I need to build then place cages around the place, or are they my hunters? Sorry, maybe I'm just getting confused with all the labours, I still haven't figured all of this out yet, obviously.

[Thadius]

The way to power a magma anything is very carefully. You have to direct the flow of the stuff to be right under where you want the forge/blacksmith in question. The blacksmith has to settle over two channeled squares that have magma flowing down below, while the forge/smelter only requires one.

If you don't take the proper precautions, you might end up with a lot of Fun as the magma tears through your base.

Hunters track down animals and shoot/beat them to death, while trappers only catch animals for taming/eating purposes.

You don't need either of them to build cage traps. However, they seem to be the only ones that can make use of animal traps to catch and tame giant cave spiders, your only way of getting silk.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Right ok, so trappers get animals for taming/sending to butchers, hunters go out and immediately kill, with whatever weapons they're equiped with. Got it.

Now I just need to get some charcoal, smelt some ores, make some swords/bolts, equip hunters with crossbows, equip military dudes with the swords and I'll be golden. I can worry about magma a little later, to remove my dependancy on charcoal, then all I need is to make bolts and build an archery to increase my bowmens skills.

THEN I can start worrying about the other half dozen skilled dwarfs I currently have no use for, like my miller, clothier and glassmaker!

[Loyal]

Mechanics handle everything that has to do with putting traps together (plus building Mechanisms and constructing Machine Components), except for Animal Traps, which are used by Trappers to capture vermin. I think Trappers can also 'bait' cage/animal traps to make them more likely to work, but I dunno how that works.

As an alternative to burning wood for Charcoal (1 fuel per 1 log), you can burn Bituminous Coal or Lignite at a Smelter to produce log-free fuel. However, since the Smelter requires 1 unit of fuel to begin with, Lignite will give you a net gain of 1 fuel, while Bituminous Coal gives a net gain of 2.

In either case, import as much of all three materials as you can. You simply cannot have too much fuel, especially if you're planning on working with Glass in any capacity.

Also, Magma workshops specifically require the underlying magma to be on one of the edge squares of the workshop; otherwise you won't be able to build.

[Melfice]

Argh!
Found a nice map. Nothing special, I guess, but it had a brook going through the mountain side I built my fort in plus some nice soil for a farm and for the rest I just stumbled on some bituminous coal so I was designating smelters and forges set up (after I bought an anvil from the autumn caravan).

THEN I found a magma pipe. Glory! Cancelled the forge and smelter and started digging for that shaft. Got it dug out, JUST started assigning the channels dug, so I could get the magma flowing... goddamn giant cave spider snuck in and murdered 9 out of my 14 dwarves before I could do anything about it.
All the useful dwarves... dead. All I had left were the 5 lowly peasants I had recruited as a guard detail of sorts.

They were starved to death for being useless.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Haha, I just read some more stuff on the wiki about different challenges people come up with for themselves. Border patrol dwarves embarking on trade roads. Building battle ship forts and flooding the levels. Strip mining entire mountains and leaving 1 massive core sample 1 tile thick and 10 z levels high! Absolutely insane tasks that I would never have thought of.

I'm so gona have to try and set up a room full of pressure plates where a certain combination of plate presses results in my entire fortress caving in, and placing a couple of cats in the room to act as an inevitable clock o'doom!

[Loyal]

Holy damn, that Mayday Graphics thing makes a huge difference. In addition to looking nicer (and square tiles are so much more comfortable than rectangular ones) it lets you designate any stone you want as economic, thus preventing it from being used for menial tasks.

It even runs faster than vanilla DF, despite having a wider resolution.

...and to "celebrate" this, I find Adamantine while searching for an underground pool. In the first month of a first year. D:

[Niveras]

The way to power a magma anything is very carefully. You have to direct the flow of the stuff to be right under where you want the forge/blacksmith in question. The blacksmith has to settle over two channeled squares that have magma flowing down below, while the forge/smelter only requires one.

Though if you want to be cheap and easy, you can just floor over the pipe or pool, leaving 1 tile gaps over which you place the various magma workshops. This is still danjares because certain things can inhabit magma - potentially attacking and killing your dwarves, although they do not (normally) respawn like normal wildlife - but is not as "complex" as learning how to work with magma.

[Wigmund]

Holy damn, that Mayday Graphics thing makes a huge difference. In addition to looking nicer (and square tiles are so much more comfortable than rectangular ones) it lets you designate any stone you want as economic, thus preventing it from being used for menial tasks.

It even runs faster than vanilla DF, despite having a wider resolution.

I've had to reduce the FPS while playing with Mayday down to 30. Otherwise at 100, everything flies across the screen before I've had time to mess with it.

[Melfice]

I will make you a kitten! The most powerful of all artifacts!

Is it up to the dwarf to get Gems? Or do the miners find them while mining about? [hasn't played this game yet]

Miners can find rough gems in the rock walls.
After that, a gem cutter makes it into a (what else) cut gem.
From there, you can go and encrust stuff with your gems. Which is what a gem setter does (I think? I've never gotten that far myself).

Anyway, as it stands, Thad/Wigmund hasn't found any gems yet, as far as I know... You could always try taping your head back on, or go in cahoots with the zombie hoary marmots.

[Ryong]

Okay, so, I digged up a nice and cool fortress, but now I noticed I can't smooth/engrave any of the walls, because they're all loam. Should I move everyone's quarters down a floor so they can be made of actual rock or do I just leave them as is?

Also: Kobolds stealing stuff from my hunter! I should give him a bone crossbow or something.

[Loyal]

The only folks for whom room value actually makes a positive difference is the Nobles (who will whine if their room is insufficiently fancy). If you activate the dwarven economy, having commoner rooms of too high value is actually a bad thing, as the dwarves will be unable to afford rent and be kicked out of their own homes.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

When does economy actually get activated anyway? Cos I keep seeing references to it on the wiki but I don't really know what it entails or how it works, outside of the fact that Dwarfs at some point have to pay for rooms.
For that matter, I've told my dwarfs to designate walls for engraving but they don't seem to ever do it. Whenever I designate the area the tiles never light up like they do when designating spots to be mined/channel/ramped or staired up or anything.

Also, I think I fucked up my first well. According to the wiki, water beneath a well has to be 3/7 deep. Mine is currently only 2/7 deep. If this is true I'm gona have to put in a floodgate, then figure out how to drain the water out of the channel I built in order to go back down and dig a bigger gap.

Oh and I can't seem to be able to remove stairs/ramps from anywhere. I've now got 3 instances of stairs being built that I want removed, but no designation seems to actually remove the stairs. The only time I managed it (somehow) I ended up with a miner stuck in the channel I just built with no way for him to exit, because he removed it from the bottom up.

[Ryong]

The only folks for whom room value actually makes a positive difference is the Nobles (who will whine if their room is insufficiently fancy). If you activate the dwarven economy, having commoner rooms of too high value is actually a bad thing, as the dwarves will be unable to afford rent and be kicked out of their own homes.

Oh okay. Also, I want to make new barracks and a new dining hall. I tried removing them and now I want to move the beds and tables and stuff but...I can't?

[Loyal]

Tiles marked for Smoothing, Engraving, and Fortification will only appear as such when you have the designation menu open. Make sure your engravers have no labour enabled but that of Stone Detailing, as it's a fairly low-priority job.

Stairs/ramps can only be removed from the bottom. The designation is from the "z" key. Make sure your miners have an escape route of some sort, even if that means leaving one stair/ramp intact.

To fill up the well the rest of the way, designate the well's tile to be a Pond (i -> select area -> p -> P -> f), and any available dwarves with any available buckets will take water from elsewhere and dump it in. Mind you, this won't work too well unless the tiles feeding the well are fairly isolated, lest it spread around too much and be useless.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Ok, turn of all other labours, got that. It's a bit of a hassle but fair enough.

So I have to leave the stairs in then? Basically I dug out the first 2 chanel tiles I wanted, then went down a z level to just mine out the rest of the way until I hit the river, leaving 1 tile before I actually hit it, then I channelled that last tile out from the z level above, so that the water flowed in, but I was unable to remove the stairs either before or after I let the water in. So I'm guessing the stairs are un-removable now?

To fill up the rest of the way, I don't think that's gona work; the original water source is a river, the surface water from which is on the same z level as the well itself (making the entire river only 1 entire tile deep. How that aounts to 2/7 is beyond my understanding though). But either way, simply throwing more water down there isn't going to increase the depth, if anything it's either just gona run back out of the fortress back into the river, or overflow the stairs, most likely the former.


I really need to drain the tunnel I dug, then channel down another level to get it right I think.

[Loyal]

A simple, but risky, solution would be to dig up from under the tile that your well is drawing water from.

Though if your water is coming from a river, it should only be a matter of waiting since rivers generate infinite water.

[Ryong]

Man, I'd love to know why won't anyone make wooden bolts. I have a dwarf with woodcrafting and crossbow-making ( just to be sure ) enabled and he won't make bolts ever.

[Melfice]

You CAN remove stairs completely.
Designate the bottom stairs removed (dunno if this work, but you could try building a wall, suspending it then [z] the stairs the hell away. After that, cancel the construction of the wall. Since the builder won't step on a marked location, he should stay on the top stairs, but if this works... I never tried it myself.) then designate a 1x1 (or how many tiles you want) area be channelled at the spot of your top stairs. You're left with a hole, sure, but that's nothing building a floor can't fix.

[Ryong]

Holy crap guys I found platinum in the second floor underground. During the start of my second year. And I still have no idea how to get rid of furniture laying around. At all.

[Melfice]

Holy crap guys I found platinum in the second floor underground. During the start of my second year. And I still have no idea how to get rid of furniture laying around. At all.

[q]=>[x]
Simple as that, though you wouldn't catch it easily, I'll admit that.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Man, I'd love to know why won't anyone make wooden bolts. I have a dwarf with woodcrafting and crossbow-making ( just to be sure ) enabled and he won't make bolts ever.

I believe that's done from the craft workshop, and requires wood carving to make wooden bolts, same as you'd need bonecrafting to make bone bolts and metal working to make metal bolts, among other things.

You CAN remove stairs completely.
Designate the bottom stairs removed (dunno if this work, but you could try building a wall, suspending it then [z] the stairs the hell away. After that, cancel the construction of the wall. Since the builder won't step on a marked location, he should stay on the top stairs, but if this works... I never tried it myself.) then designate a 1x1 (or how many tiles you want) area be channelled at the spot of your top stairs. You're left with a hole, sure, but that's nothing building a floor can't fix.

Eugh, it may, but it'll probably end up in a clusterfuck of confusion. For now I'll just leave the stairs in.

Holy crap guys I found platinum in the second floor underground. During the start of my second year. And I still have no idea how to get rid of furniture laying around. At all.

Remove any room designations with q. If that doesn't work, use q again on each piece of furniture and remove it. As long as you don't order it dumped, forbidden or smelted down, it should be moved back to a stockpile. I did this with a couple of bedrooms I had to move.

EDIT; Yeah, what Melfice said, I just fogot what key was used to actually remove constructions.

[Loyal]

I think I may have found the one dwarf more useless than a Soaper:

A butcher who "likes cats for their aloofness". He keeps getting enamored with them in between taking them out of the cage, and turning them into delicious edibles. This asshole's going in the military before he adoptsis adopted by the entire fortress' feline population.

[Ryong]

So, I was doing fairly well...

...Then I got 16 migrants at once. Oh crap. I...I need to start being specific with labors.

[Thadius]

Dwarf Manager is your friend.

[Loyal]

Boy oh boy machines and mechanisms are so much fun once you get the hang of 'em. In addition to drawing water up 8 floors from an underground river for the sake of a well, and for irrigating an indoor farm, nobles' offices are being rigged for individual drowning at the touch of a lever, along with an automatic draining system to feed the water back into the river.

Also, a noble-exclusive communal dining room is being built, which among other things will have a pair of waterfalls. Possibly self-powered, but then I need the wood for beds since I only have enough for about half the population.

It's taking a lot of dwarfpower to set-up, but fortunately a couple of Goblin ambushes have left me with a lot of Narrow equipment to sell (or melt), and the Human caravan has brought a lot of booze, food, leather, cages, and most importantly wood.

All I need to do now is find the bottomless pit that I know exists somewhere, so I can start collecting silk, and I'll be set.

[Marc v4.0]

I have no idea what's going on and I'm frustrated and confused and I now have barely any room for food and booze cause I have crafts and rocks stacked all over.

This is so much fun.

[Melfice]

I have no idea what's going on and I'm frustrated and confused and I now have barely any room for food and booze cause I have crafts and rocks stacked all over.

This is so much fun.

Fun, or Fun? :P

Regardless, dig out some extra storage room and designate it as the "Finished Goods" stockpile.
Rocks shouldn't matter, though. You can comfortably put almost anything on top of a pile of rock.

[Marc v4.0]

I did. It's huge.

What the hell do you do about all the rocks, though? I can't get rid of them, just move them to another large room/the wilderness

Fun as in the type of fun you have by not knowing how to do anything at all and then slowly learning from one random trial and error to another. It's like a mind puzzle.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Designate a 1 tile Dump, then select what rocks you want dumped. Dumps act as infinite piles you can put whatever you want on.

[Arhra]

Hmm, I'm on my first fortress and no-one has died yet!

Although it helps the only enemy I've run into was a kobold thief. My only wood cutter was just two squares away, so I recruited him. It took me a while how to figure out how to get rid of the body and its legs though.

I'm not quite sure how you loot bodies. He had a copper knife which I wanted to melt down since I haven't found any metal yet, but no-one was picking it up.

Just done the first trade caravan. I've made a start on textiles and am hoping to find some ore soon as well.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Arhra; go to the items screen, (Z-stocks) and scroll down until you find the stuff you want, and press F. This will remove the Forbid option that's usually set on dropped objects. It's set as on by default to stop all your dwarfs immediately running out to loot bodies every time there's a battle.

[Loyal]

Ooooor, you could just hit (k) to view items, hover over the loot, and un-forbid them from there.

Better yet, mass-unforbid them with the mass-designation tool (d --> b).

[Malek]

If you know where the items are, you can also do it by using the look command with k, and highlight the tile it's on, then use + or - to scroll through the items on the tile and unforbiding them with f. There might also be a designation option to do it en mass, but I don't remember the exact command.
If they're still not being looted afterwards, try pressing o and seeing if there is something in the orders menu preventing dwarves from looting stuff off of enemy dead.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Ha, cool, my growers got married. Fortunately I had already placed their individual rooms next door to each other, so I knocked out the interveneing wall and gave them a larger accomidation.

Also had my first death, a stoneworker. He went crazy after I was unable to accomidate his fey mood and was later found drowned beneath the drawbridge. We suspect suicide.

We have been unable to recover his body.

[Roland]

I started a new fortress a while ago. Built it at the junction of two rivers. Planned to make it a (mostly) above ground fortress. Two years in one of my miners gets a fey mood and starts demanding metal bars. I had none, but I figured "screw it" and decided to cheat. So I go to save/quit so I can edit the raws. Dwarf Fortress picks this as the right time to crash. Two years down the drain. It's my computer's fault, really. It's nearly 6 years old now, and I'm surprised it hasn't just up and died yet.

[Loyal]

Apparantly, the Fortress Guard is not only a good place to send military invalids, but also a self-fulfilling prophesy to that effect. I appoint a random peasant to the guard, and not one week later I get this:

http://i46.tinypic.com/2gucb45.png

So I go to investigate him, and what do I see?

http://i50.tinypic.com/i2jzgw.png

Near as I can tell, he gets up to try and get a drink, walks into a wall or something, falls back unconscious, and gets up a few minutes later to try again.

[Melfice]

G'dammit, I've got 6 Dwarves in the military, standing at their station at the entrance of my fortress, when suddenly a Giant Bat comes barging in.
What does the military do?

If you answered, attempt to murderize the bat you'd be... horribly wrong.
Why the fuck are you not chopping at the bat, bastards!?

Abandoned the fortress, once more! Ugh...

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

You abandoned the fortress... over a bat??? Pfft, I just had 3 sworddwarves taking on about 7 goblins and wrecked their shit! AND I had inferior tech. Lost 2 dogs, a hunter and a Sworddwarf in the prcoess, but then I got to loot the bodies and get some iron weapons and armour, and recruited another 4 peasants so now I'm ready for anything!

Luckily I got immigrants right after the attack so I haven't really lost anything.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

You abandoned the fortress... over a bat??? Pfft, I just had 3 sworddwarves taking on about 7 goblins and wrecked their shit! AND I had inferior tech. Lost 2 dogs, a hunter and a Sworddwarf in the prcoess, but then I got to loot the bodies and get some iron weapons and armour, and recruited another 4 peasants so now I'm ready for anything!

Luckily I got immigrants right after the attack so I haven't really lost anything.

Except the lives of the very Dwarves you were sworn to protect and aid.

You horrible, horrible monster.

[Loyal]

Dwarves are expendable, sociopathic alcoholics. Really, we're doing them a favor.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yeah, what Loyal said!! Bastards keep going insane, getting possessed and/or throwing tantrums on me anyway, why the fuck should I go out of my way to care about them??!

At least these ones that died had the dignity to do so trying to fend off horrible goblin hordes, rather than going moody and killing my newly appointed bookeeper/miller like a previous dwarf did!

[Wigmund]

Except the lives of the very Dwarves you were sworn to protect and aid.

You horrible, horrible monster.

There's a reason Dwarf Fortress (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DwarfFortress) is mentioned under Video Game Cruelty Potential (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPotential) on TV Tropes.

Hell, I'll recruit peasants to mine into volcanoes to protect my legendary miners when using magma for various projects. I have peasants to spare. It's great watching the guy tap into the pipe only to burst into flames as he tries to flee death, "Urist McUseless has died from the heat". Though you'll occasionally have someone get depressed because you sent their father or mother to get roasted alive...but that's why you have a really great dining hall - makes them forget and they won't start a tantrum spiral (yet).

[Melfice]

The problem is...
My military did nothing and got slaughtered.
Emergency lockdown... well, the bat was roaming the dormitory level, so even IF everybody got into their rooms safe enough they would have no food or booze. So, that option was out.
What was left? Recruit EVERYBODY and hope for the best. Yeah. That failed too. They, again, refused to engage, meaning I lost 75% of my dwarves.

Maybe I ran into a bug, or something, I don't know. It still sucked hardcore.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Had you actually been training your military? And did you have them patroling the entrance way into your fortress? Cos if you were doing both those things you should have been ok.

EDIT; Also, just recruiting everyone doesn't help; they have no weapons, nor any training, so of course they'll die.

[Melfice]

Had you actually been training your military? And did you have them patroling the entrance way into your fortress? Cos if you were doing both those things you should have been ok.

EDIT; Also, just recruiting everyone doesn't help; they have no weapons, nor any training, so of course they'll die.

The actual military was trained. They were patrolling.
I don't know what happened.

And I know recruiting everybody won't help. But it was either that and hope for the best, or starve everybody and pray the bat leaves. Took my chances, and it failed. Eh.

[Roland]

Did you set them to harassing the local wildlife? 'cause there's an option for that. I'm not sure if it would've helped or not, though. Giant Bats are arguably the most obnoxious living non-legendary animals in the game.

[Marc v4.0]

Man, I set that option, and now there's nothing alive outside but my millions of cats and dogs

[Loyal]

Cats and dogs should be caged until adulthood (preferably near the butcher shop), at which point they should be butchered and trained, respectively.

[Marc v4.0]

Yeah, I'm not having any luck with that.

No matter how many I caged, more and more and more would just be there.

[Melfice]

Cats and dogs should be caged until adulthood (preferably near the butcher shop), at which point they should be butchered and trained, respectively.

If you're going to have them become hot dogs and cat-burgers anyway, why wait until adulthood?
As I understand it, the yield from a kitten is equal to the yield of a cat. This would, supposedly, also avoid the "Cuddly Wuddly Syndrome"*.

* The cat taking a Dwarf as it's pet. Leading to either an unprocessed cat (if the cat's new pet is the butcher), or a very sad Dwarf.

[Marc v4.0]

Dwarves shouldn't be able to afford saddness with how much of their resources I'M taking for my various water and magma related whims

[Wigmund]

Dwarves shouldn't be able to afford saddness with how much of their resources I'M taking for my various water and magma related whims

With as much as the little shits drink, you would think they would be too wasted to be upset about their best friend being eaten by rhesus macaques (goddamn monkey thieves) or that their pets have been turned into a lavish meal, some trade trinkets, and somedwarf's new hat.

[Malek]

Just turn their cat into a high quality lavish meal, then while they may be sad about the death of their cat, they'll be happy because he was delicious

[synkr0nized]

Lava everywhere!

We dug too deep!