I've currently reached somewhat of an impasse in my DF. I have a save that I made right after I activated a lava flow down a channel out to my front defenses. Unfortunately, just as I activated this, the floodgate at the other end disappeared. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if this didn't open a path to the outside that was previously blocked by fortifications. This meant that about 20 of my dwarves, upon seeing the floodgate disappear, went "Hot diggity! Time to work on the a tan!" Unfortunately, the only path available to them is the one along which the lava flows. Or will flow, rather, in about two minutes time.
Cue: Eight dead dwarves, including two legendaries. Two mules, two cows and countless kittens also perish.
I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save, methinks.
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1652642:date=Sep 28 2007, 05:57 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Sep 28 2007, 05:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652642"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It'd be great if Dwarf Fortress was more approachable, but I'm not sure how that could be done without dumbing it down. A tutorial would be great though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Tutorial Levels!
Have intelligent people set up decent/good set ups, then save it and post em up so that nubtards (like my self ) can get a good idea of wth is going on. If you can queue up all the orders and what not and then save it, all the better. Include little readmes on each one.
The best would be if the devs could create a non-random level that has a sorta walk through. So you do all the work, but you know what to expect and what to do.
MonkfishSonic-boom-inducing buttcheeks of terrifying speed!Join Date: 2003-06-03Member: 16972Members
there is more than enough info in the DF wiki to help you get started <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1652687:date=Sep 28 2007, 11:55 AM:name=Sonic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sonic @ Sep 28 2007, 11:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652687"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there is more than enough info in the DF wiki to help you get started <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yah, but it is all sorta disjointed and not exactly easy to follow. One of the big problems is getting used to the interface and controls.
I started again and I'm having a little better luck. it's summer and I haven't started my farm yet though - I better get on that. I realized the reason my carpenter wasn't getting logs to build wood stuff is because when he completed building his workshop, he entombed himself in it, blocking off the door, so he couldn't leave to get wood (or food or drink). another amusing thing from my failed last game is that since my carpenter had entombed himself in his workshop, he couldn't get wood to make a bucket... and he was dying of thirst, so the other dwarves wanted to bring him water, but they had no buckets =d
whenever I see screenshots of people's forts, they always look so elegant and whatnot. where do people find room for all the storage they need? I just have one gigantic storage room I keep enlarging and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger because there's no room for everything... it's about 20x20 now... with notches carved out every 7x7 so it doesn't cave in
<!--quoteo(post=1652665:date=Sep 28 2007, 08:22 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scythe @ Sep 28 2007, 08:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652665"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've currently reached somewhat of an impasse in my DF. I have a save that I made right after I activated a lava flow down a channel out to my front defenses. Unfortunately, just as I activated this, the floodgate at the other end disappeared. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if this didn't open a path to the outside that was previously blocked by fortifications. This meant that about 20 of my dwarves, upon seeing the floodgate disappear, went "Hot diggity! Time to work on the a tan!" Unfortunately, the only path available to them is the one along which the lava flows. Or will flow, rather, in about two minutes time.
Cue: Eight dead dwarves, including two legendaries. Two mules, two cows and countless kittens also perish.
I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save, methinks.
MonkfishSonic-boom-inducing buttcheeks of terrifying speed!Join Date: 2003-06-03Member: 16972Members
<!--quoteo(post=1652689:date=Sep 28 2007, 04:00 PM:name=Thansal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Thansal @ Sep 28 2007, 04:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652689"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yah, but it is all sorta disjointed and not exactly easy to follow. One of the big problems is getting used to the interface and controls.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the quickstart guide and the first starting build should give you all the basic controls and starting stuff.
<!--quoteo(post=1652695:date=Sep 28 2007, 12:26 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Sep 28 2007, 12:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652695"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->whenever I see screenshots of people's forts, they always look so elegant and whatnot. where do people find room for all the storage they need? I just have one gigantic storage room I keep enlarging and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger because there's no room for everything... it's about 20x20 now... with notches carved out every 7x7 so it doesn't cave in<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What sort of stockpiles are these? I used to stockpile everything in my fortress, including every single stone I mined. I have since much reduced my stockpiling. I don't have a furniture stockpile (except for empty barrels near my still), and my only mining stockpiles are used when I have a bunch of dwarves idle and I need ore close to my smelting industry. Uh, what else? A lot of people make 'traveling workshops' at various depths in their fortresses to clear up stone. Make custom stockpiles liberally. Then can really reduce travel time between material and workshop.
As for elephants, try starting in a 'cold' or 'freezing' map. (Though if you do that I recommend you shut off temperature in the init file lest your dwarves die of frostbite.)
Redford suggests <a href="http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">dorf fortress wiki</a>. Clicking the surviving your first year link and you shall learn everything you need to know to start a new fort. The particulars about making an underground farm are too complex to go into here, but the general idea is to dig east until you find the river. Dig out a cave to farm in. Use floodgates (and a save backup) to flood the ground to make mud, and then have farmers plant seeds in the mud. I highly suggest making a seeds only stockpile near the farm in a locked room so when you flood it the barrels don't get washed away.
Also, a good way to use less storage space is to make barrels and bins. Multiple items will stack inside one object, making much better use of your space. In addition, barreled food is immune to random rotting issues.
<!--quoteo(post=1652703:date=Sep 28 2007, 01:25 PM:name=Confused)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Confused @ Sep 28 2007, 01:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->how i mine for food?
no seriously i think my dudes are starving.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> seems like farming is one of the most complicated but important things in the game <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> I just had an almost successful fortress... I built a nice big room to flood, built 2 floodgates next to the river connecting to my future farm room, connected them to a lever outside the door, pulled the lever and... nothing happened. tried various ways to fix it and nothing helped. no clue what I did wrong.
Have to have a floodgate next to a channel or two floodgates next to each other...both preferably connected to the same switch. Single floodgate w/o channel won't flood a room on the opposite side of the gate.
MonkfishSonic-boom-inducing buttcheeks of terrifying speed!Join Date: 2003-06-03Member: 16972Members
<!--quoteo(post=1652709:date=Sep 28 2007, 05:45 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Sep 28 2007, 05:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652709"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->seems like farming is one of the most complicated but important things in the game <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> I just had an almost successful fortress... I built a nice big room to flood, built 2 floodgates next to the river connecting to my future farm room, connected them to a lever outside the door, pulled the lever and... nothing happened. tried various ways to fix it and nothing helped. no clue what I did wrong.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You have to put the first floodgate in at the back, then use a mechanism to make a lever. Connect the two with another mechanism then put the other floodgate in and connect that one to the same lever with another mechanism.
MonkfishSonic-boom-inducing buttcheeks of terrifying speed!Join Date: 2003-06-03Member: 16972Members
<!--quoteo(post=1652741:date=Sep 28 2007, 07:20 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Sep 28 2007, 07:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652741"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->aha, I think I get it now =p thanks hehe
I must have blocked in my back floodgate last time,...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Make sure to lock the door as well while you're flooding the room.
<!--quoteo(post=1652758:date=Sep 28 2007, 04:39 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Sep 28 2007, 04:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1652758"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Or put it inside the door if channels in your corridors offend your sense of aesthetics as much as mine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> so how do you keep your fortress looking neat? metal veins alone make mine look like crap - do you just ignore metal veins rather than suck them dry?
I think he's referring to how there are metal resources in places you weren't expecting and to mine them changes the layout of the room.
I thought newer versions allowed you to refill sections of rock after you'd mined them to help solve this problem. Though I haven't played in a long time so I can't be sure.
you know your dwarves are starving when you watch them run outside and catch lizards to eat raw <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
MonkfishSonic-boom-inducing buttcheeks of terrifying speed!Join Date: 2003-06-03Member: 16972Members
hm..aparently abandoning your fortress makes you not able to load your game...I just wanted to start again cause my fortress was called "Cloisterdeath" <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
every time I think I'm getting the hang of this game, I find out I'm terribly wrong. I have about 30 dwarves now, and a 'working' farm - but still can't seem to keep my food production anywhere close to food consumption. all my dwarves are pretty much perpetually hunting vermin for food, and I don't really have enough seeds to make a huge crop. I have like a 20x20 farm but only about 10 squares max have ever been planted... and I don't know where my seeds are going. maybe my starving dwarves are just eating them? I know I have the cooking of seeds turned off so that can't be it I don't think...
with my luck, the goblins will start invading or something any day now.
Make sure you have 2 growers. Make a plot of farm and make sure you have a food stockpile that only store seeds next to it. My farms generally are usually large rectangular rooms with one tiny room (1x3 or so) in the middle with seed stores.
Managing stockpiles - specially with the current logics - is a bit of an art here. Next version will make it all much much easier I hope.
Food tip: a good thing to do before embarking is to take some seeds of all the farmable plants. Plump helmets and pig tails are the standard ones. You can find these seeds in the wilderness (I think) or trade them from a caravan, but it's most likely slower than you'd need.
So the things you'll need: kitchen, brewery, farmer's workshop and barrels (<b><u>make sure you allow only like two or three barrels in your food stockpile<i></u></i></b>). The first crop you should farm is plump helmets, since they're edible right away and can act as a backup food for now. The second crop is sweet pods, and you'll learn to love them. Later in the game you should make as many types of cookable food as possible.
So, once you have some sweet pods, go to the farmer's workshop and give a few "Process plants (to barrel)" orders. One job requires one free barrel, so I hope your food stockpile hasn't occupied all of them. Also, give brewing jobs in the brewery (which also need barrels). When you have some syrup (from farmer's workshop) and some alcohol from the brewery, go to your kitchen and order "Make lavish meal"s. Lavish meals take and combine 4 stacks of cookable food into one huge roast. Once you get the hang of producing these awesome roasts, your food problems are likely gone forever.
Why is this so awesome? One sweet pod can be turned into 5 units of syrup. If you have a stack of, say, 5 sweet pods, they'll turn into 25 units of syrup. Same thing goes for brewing: one plant converts into 5 units of alcohol. So lets say you have these stacks: 5 x sweet pod, 5 x plump helmets, 3 x meat, 3 x meat. The sweet pods turn into 25 units of syrup, and the plump helmets into 25 units of alcohol. Now you cook these things, to make 25 + 25 + 3 + 3 = <b>56 units of food</b>.
You can survive without cooking your food for quite long, but eventually your population exceeds your maximum food production. So it's a good idea to start cooking asap. Another thing to keep an eye on is not to cook <b>all</b> your alcohol. Dwarves work faster and get happier when they can get some beer :T
Comments
Cue: Eight dead dwarves, including two legendaries. Two mules, two cows and countless kittens also perish.
I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save, methinks.
--Scythe--
Tutorial Levels!
Have intelligent people set up decent/good set ups, then save it and post em up so that nubtards (like my self ) can get a good idea of wth is going on. If you can queue up all the orders and what not and then save it, all the better. Include little readmes on each one.
The best would be if the devs could create a non-random level that has a sorta walk through. So you do all the work, but you know what to expect and what to do.
Yah, but it is all sorta disjointed and not exactly easy to follow. One of the big problems is getting used to the interface and controls.
whenever I see screenshots of people's forts, they always look so elegant and whatnot. where do people find room for all the storage they need? I just have one gigantic storage room I keep enlarging and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger because there's no room for everything... it's about 20x20 now... with notches carved out every 7x7 so it doesn't cave in
Cue: Eight dead dwarves, including two legendaries. Two mules, two cows and countless kittens also perish.
I'm going to have to revert to an earlier save, methinks.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lava men smashed the floodgate?
the quickstart guide and the first starting build should give you all the basic controls and starting stuff.
What sort of stockpiles are these? I used to stockpile everything in my fortress, including every single stone I mined. I have since much reduced my stockpiling. I don't have a furniture stockpile (except for empty barrels near my still), and my only mining stockpiles are used when I have a bunch of dwarves idle and I need ore close to my smelting industry. Uh, what else? A lot of people make 'traveling workshops' at various depths in their fortresses to clear up stone. Make custom stockpiles liberally. Then can really reduce travel time between material and workshop.
As for elephants, try starting in a 'cold' or 'freezing' map. (Though if you do that I recommend you shut off temperature in the init file lest your dwarves die of frostbite.)
no seriously i think my dudes are starving.
Also, a good way to use less storage space is to make barrels and bins. Multiple items will stack inside one object, making much better use of your space. In addition, barreled food is immune to random rotting issues.
no seriously i think my dudes are starving.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
seems like farming is one of the most complicated but important things in the game <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> I just had an almost successful fortress... I built a nice big room to flood, built 2 floodgates next to the river connecting to my future farm room, connected them to a lever outside the door, pulled the lever and... nothing happened. tried various ways to fix it and nothing helped. no clue what I did wrong.
You have to put the first floodgate in at the back, then use a mechanism to make a lever. Connect the two with another mechanism then put the other floodgate in and connect that one to the same lever with another mechanism.
I must have blocked in my back floodgate last time,...
I must have blocked in my back floodgate last time,...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Make sure to lock the door as well while you're flooding the room.
so how do you keep your fortress looking neat? metal veins alone make mine look like crap - do you just ignore metal veins rather than suck them dry?
I thought newer versions allowed you to refill sections of rock after you'd mined them to help solve this problem. Though I haven't played in a long time so I can't be sure.
with my luck, the goblins will start invading or something any day now.
Managing stockpiles - specially with the current logics - is a bit of an art here. Next version will make it all much much easier I hope.
So the things you'll need: kitchen, brewery, farmer's workshop and barrels (<b><u>make sure you allow only like two or three barrels in your food stockpile<i></u></i></b>). The first crop you should farm is plump helmets, since they're edible right away and can act as a backup food for now. The second crop is sweet pods, and you'll learn to love them. Later in the game you should make as many types of cookable food as possible.
So, once you have some sweet pods, go to the farmer's workshop and give a few "Process plants (to barrel)" orders. One job requires one free barrel, so I hope your food stockpile hasn't occupied all of them. Also, give brewing jobs in the brewery (which also need barrels). When you have some syrup (from farmer's workshop) and some alcohol from the brewery, go to your kitchen and order "Make lavish meal"s. Lavish meals take and combine 4 stacks of cookable food into one huge roast. Once you get the hang of producing these awesome roasts, your food problems are likely gone forever.
Why is this so awesome? One sweet pod can be turned into 5 units of syrup. If you have a stack of, say, 5 sweet pods, they'll turn into 25 units of syrup. Same thing goes for brewing: one plant converts into 5 units of alcohol. So lets say you have these stacks: 5 x sweet pod, 5 x plump helmets, 3 x meat, 3 x meat. The sweet pods turn into 25 units of syrup, and the plump helmets into 25 units of alcohol. Now you cook these things, to make 25 + 25 + 3 + 3 = <b>56 units of food</b>.
You can survive without cooking your food for quite long, but eventually your population exceeds your maximum food production. So it's a good idea to start cooking asap. Another thing to keep an eye on is not to cook <b>all</b> your alcohol. Dwarves work faster and get happier when they can get some beer :T