Dwarf fortress

[Arachu]

Actually, that bucket might have some use. Place a well made with it in your dining hall, and WHAM! Instant usefulness as the value of the room skyrockets.

Man, though, do those wells draw attention like meat does to flies. I need three already about my chapel project (which is a large hamlet at this point).

Speaking of, I added a sort of Royal Booth high up in the chapel. When I get nobles, it'll be an excellent meeting place.

Consort: "Have you solved the tax problem?"
Baron: "Why yes, indeed I have. Give the collector a hammer."
Consort: "Oh, that's a good-oh, look, the show is starting!"
A man with a huge axe walks up onto the altar and promptly chops the kobolds chained there in half.
Crowd: "YES!!! BLOOOOD!!!!"
Consort: "Oh, how delightfully droll..."

Yeah, let's make that happen

[TheSummoner]

Another addition to my list of things I'd like to see in the future - Boats.

In areas surrounded by water (large lakes and oceans), trade caravans and sieges should come by sea. I would imagine that a boat would about 5x5, possibly larger, and could carry several normal wagons and whatnot. The boat would land as close to the fortress area as possible, and the wagons would transport the goods the rest of the way.

Siege boats on the other hand would simply carry a large number of goblins and trolls (as well as any building style siege things that may be implimented... such as 3x3 mobile ladder towers to let them scale walls). If your fortress is open to the sea, you might have a problem... how fun ^_^

[AgentPaper]

So I'm having some trouble figuring out how much of various things I need to support my dwarves. How much farmland do you need per dwarf? How many wells? How big of a dining area? How many kitchens? How many nobles that need larger lodgings, and how large? How much of the farmland should be devoted to alcohol production? How much farmland can a single dwarf farm?

I guess this is what I have to spend making dozens of different forts finding out, but I can't seem to pin down these sorts of ratios. I always have either way too much food or not nearly enough. Same with most of the stuff, really.

[TheSummoner]

One legendary farmer can provide enough plants to sustain 50 dwarves (for both food and alcohol) so long as he is constantly farming. Typically, I only allow farmers to harvest so they can get the experience for it. A single 10x10 plot is probably more than enough. Put priority on plants that can both be eaten as is and brewed, although variety never hurts.

Kitchens are not necessary, they only make food production more efficient. A single one is fine, atleast in my opinion. More help if you want to prevent clutter, but thats up to you.

Its not hard at all to make a legendary dining hall. Regardless, I typically go above and beyond making mine extravagant. 50 tables/chairs is more than enough for a max capacity fortress.

[Cubey]

A starting fortress needs only a tiny farm, less than 5x5. I'd say to make a big plot (biggest possible size) for every 50 dwarves, but that's probably way too much. You rarely need more than one well ever. Your dining area should have one table+chair per 3 or 4 dwarves to prevent overcrowding. Kitchens were answered - one is enough, build more if unprepared food is cluttering everything. Nobles don't need rooms with a certain size, but rather with a certain value. Of course, bigger rooms means you can smooth/engrave more walls and floors and have more place for expensive items. Most of my nobles were perfectly satisfied with a 3x3 bedroom and 3x3 dining room. A baron could use a bigger room, 4x4 or 5x5. If you reach a king, knock yourself out and make his room as big as you want.

[Arachu]

Things I've learned making the overly aforementioned chapel:

Dwarves don't mind living in a closet, at all. dwarven workers can literally live in 3x3-wall rooms with enough room for only their bunk, and they don't seem to give a damn. It's convenient to know

One well is all you need; until you reach about 50 population. Then, you need another (possibly two more). And, with all wells, you should plan (or build) it so that dwarves can visit it from all 8 angles (horizontal, vertical, diagonal).

It is annoying to only have 1 miner for underground projects, even if he is legendary


Also, basalt thrones with sunstone spikes, set in high-rise, expertly-crafted wooden rooms with iron statues atop it are badass




... I want to make a fort with rooms hanging on pillars over a 30 Z-level pit now. Just think of the casualty count when something dodges anything!

Good... Good...

[Cubey]

Commoner dwarves will be happy to just have a bed to call their own, even if it's on a mud cavern floor with no walls around for even a little privacy. It's nobles and legendaries who get picky.

I tend to build a well with only 1 direction it's reachable from. Why? Because you usually don't need a well for anything else other than giving water to the wounded, and giving the dwarves a greater access to it will give them more opportunities to swarm around and try to fall into the well. Especially when drunk.

And if they run out of booze and have to drink water, I'm okay with them going out to drink some foul stuff from a pond or a a still puddle. It's their fault for ruining my alcohol reserves, either because the brewer went for a 3-month nap, or because everyone stupidly used up all the barrels and the carpenters are doing stupid things instead of making more. One way or another, not my fault.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Wells give happy thoughts. My artifact bucket made a very nice well in my new dining area.

[Arachu]

Wait, that actually worked? Err, I mean.. I totally predicted that

Anyhow, my first desert fort was a bust. Mostly because I forgot there wouldn't be any trees halfway through. Anyone have advice on how to start in a desert?

Also, is it possible to have a stream and no aquifer?

[TheSummoner]

Yes... Infact, my current map has a stream, no aquifer, and is mostly in either badlands or desert... cant remember which... Either way, very few trees...

[Rockphed]

I have started with a stream but not an aquifer many a time. Typically I have to work to find myself an infinite supply of water, not avoid them.

As for getting wood in the desert. Logs are cheap. Bring a bunch when you embark(unless you really need an anvil to start, you can ignore them), giving you 1000 points to spend on wood and rock.

[TheSummoner]

Unless you lack magma, you wont need that many logs... ever. Bone bolts instead of wood stone furnature. Beds are the only thing that you NEED wood for...

[Arachu]

However, wood is particularly good for building, and much like stone, it has aesthetic value (log cabins, 'traditional' fortress/wall, flooring for fancy rooms...).

It depends on your style, really. I tend to order it by defensive nature; wood for room doors, stone for bastion-walls, etc.

Though I did recently begin construction on a guard tower to move my barracks closer to use in one of my forts (guess which one )

Also, I found a lake with no aquifer, though it happened to be on a savanna. I can work with that

[TheSummoner]

Typically I build a wooden wall with towers on the corners around my aboveground works, usually entirely in Highwood... However due to the lack of wood on my map, I'm just using stone instead. Stone blocks to make it all worth 5x as much...

[Greep]

Unless you lack magma, you wont need that many logs... ever. Bone bolts instead of wood stone furnature. Beds are the only thing that you NEED wood for...

true, but who wants to waste 3 metal for a barrel or 3 for a bin, when a single metal wood will do?

[Rockphed]

true, but who wants to waste 3 metal for a barrel or 3 for a bin, when a single metal wood will do?

When you have mined out an entire cluster of magnetite and have been fighting off goblins for 15 years, you have enough iron and steel that it doesn't matter anymore what you do with it. If you also have magma, you can make lots of metal stuff without worrying about fuel.

[Lord Herman]

My fortress has run out of fossil fuels; I haven't found a vein of bituminous coal (or even lignite) in ages. Am I right in assuming this won't actually be a problem as long as I have lots of wood for making charcoal? Is there anything that explicitly requires coal rather than charcoal?

[TheSummoner]

Nope, you're fine.

[Lord Herman]

Okay, good. My fortress didn't descend into utter chaos when the coal ran out, but it can't hurt to be sure.

Oh, by the way, I found a new graphics set: Shpr's tileset. The dorfs are not as cute as the ones in Mayday's set, but they're well-drawn, and there are separate graphics for all jobs, not just for job categories.

Edit: Uh... something tells me my dorfs suffer from cave adaptation:

Spoiler

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[Justyn]

Okay, good. My fortress didn't descend into utter chaos when the coal ran out, but it can't hurt to be sure.

Oh, by the way, I found a new graphics set: Shpr's tileset. The dorfs are not as cute as the ones in Mayday's set, but they're well-drawn, and there are separate graphics for all jobs, not just for job categories.

Edit: Uh... something tells me my dorfs suffer from cave adaptation:

Spoiler

Show

I was laughing so hard the first time I came across the Cave Adaptation page on the wiki.

[Artanis]

So I'm having some trouble figuring out how much of various things I need to support my dwarves. How much farmland do you need per dwarf? How many wells? How big of a dining area? How many kitchens? How many nobles that need larger lodgings, and how large? How much of the farmland should be devoted to alcohol production? How much farmland can a single dwarf farm?

I guess this is what I have to spend making dozens of different forts finding out, but I can't seem to pin down these sorts of ratios. I always have either way too much food or not nearly enough. Same with most of the stuff, really.

Farmland: Not much. Fifty tiles' worth of farmland (5x10) should be plenty if your farmers are good enough, especially if you boost your food supply with livestock, trading, and quarry bushes/sweet pods.

Wells: One. If you have enough booze, the only reason you'll ever need a well is for bringing water to the wounded. If you have more wounded than a single well can support, you've got bigger problems than a traffic jam at the water supply.

Dining Area: Not terribly large, actually. The important thing is the value in the room, and you can pack a ridiculous amount of value into a surprisingly small area. I've never really needed more than about a dozen or so tables, and two dozen will be more than enough.

Noble Rooms: Check the chart here. Like a dining area, the important part is the value. Cram enough gold furniture and engravings, and 8x8 should be more than enough. Even smaller if you get some artifacts to stick in there. Also, keep in mind that you can overlap rooms - I usually stick a noble's office, bedroom, dining room, and/or tomb in the same spot - to save on space (though you need to put in more valuable stuff because the value is split). Some like to overlap everybody's stuff in the same spot, but that's generally seen as one of the larger exploits in the game because it breaks the value system.

Booze: As much as you need. Don't forget that a LOT of crops can double up. So if you have a bunch of plump helmets, you can brew some of them and leave others for eating. Same goes for...well, damn well near everything. Either way, you want to keep a sizeable stockpile of booze.

Dwarf Farmers: Theoretically, a LOT. Planting seeds is a relatively quick job, especially if the seeds are close to the fields. In practice, you're going to want several farmers. Like I said about field sizes before, it's not the size of the fields, it's how many plants you get...and legendary planters can get a LOT of plants per seed. It's not too terribly uncommon for a legendary planter to wind up getting you thirty food from a single seed (six plants of a crop that can be processed to 5x food, like quarry bushes), and that's without fertilizer.

Food surplus: It's hard to have "too much" food. If you've got a few thousand, you can leave the fields fallow (or plant non-food crops like pig tails or dimple cumps), and trade it away. But it's better to have more than you need than it is to have less

[BRC]

It's been a while since I played DF. I should boot it up again. I remember I had built my fortress in a mountain, and excavated a smaller mountain, building a lavish apartment into the peak.

I also remember having abuch of dwarves with nothing to do, so my entire fortress was smoothed or engraved, I had several outdoors structures, and I had lots of 3x3 rooms dug out in lower Z-levels for no real reason.

I also had two big meeting rooms, one with an indoor waterfall, though it kept getting water all over the room.

My main entrance was guarded by walls with a porticullus and a very tall tower. I had another tower that served as a warehouse and a place for more workshops. It was all pretty awesome.
I should post some screencaps of that fortress, I am rather proud of it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Food surplus: It's hard to have "too much" food. If you've got a few thousand, you can leave the fields fallow (or plant non-food crops like pig tails or dimple cumps), and trade it away. But it's better to have more than you need than it is to have less

Tell that to my most long-lived fortress. I had to hollow out a small mountain and fill it with nothing but food stockpiles to fit all my surplus.

[BRC]

Tell that to my most long-lived fortress. I had to hollow out a small mountain and fill it with nothing but food stockpiles to fit all my surplus.

I had a similar problem. My fortress was doing too well, and I had trouble keeping my masses busy and storing all my food.

[Destro_Yersul]

My solution involved the creation of a massive tower designed to pump magma to various places. That kept 'em busy for a while.

[Arachu]

I usually tell idlers to do something useful. No carpentry jobs? (A crime in and of itself- but often unavoidable) Task the woodworker on architecture or build a wooden wall. Out of huntable animals, establish a farm for the rangers to run.

When in doubt, yell "get to work!", then click something and hope for the best


As for food, it's a lot like (something I doubt I can mention). I'd rather have it, and not need it, then not have it and need it.

And yes, that's from Aliens vs. Predator

[Suicide Junkie]

Whenever you are storing food, I highly recommend that you do NOT mix things from the categories of: edible food, booze, non-edible food (stuff that needs processing/cooking before it is edible).

Instead, place a stockpile for the non-edible food between your still/mill/kitchen, and split the consumables to either side of the storage room so that you can tell at a glance if you're running low on one or the other.

Also, be sure to have a furniture stockpile for barrels only. Best placed beside the still so you know if your brewer needs more barrels made. This will ensure that your storage room does not contain an excess of empty barrels and mislead you as to how much chow you have left.

[BRC]

I usually tell idlers to do something useful. No carpentry jobs? (A crime in and of itself- but often unavoidable) Task the woodworker on architecture or build a wooden wall. Out of huntable animals, establish a farm for the rangers to run.

When in doubt, yell "get to work!", then click something and hope for the best


As for food, it's a lot like (something I doubt I can mention). I'd rather have it, and not need it, then not have it and need it.

And yes, that's from Aliens vs. Predator

Generally I would come up with some complicated masonery project, like building a tower or somthing.

[Lord Herman]

Seeing as my trade depot is located on an island in my moat, I've decided to build a device that can... erm... flush the depot.

...it's for keeping out goblins, honest. Not for getting rid of those annoying elves who just won't leave even after being subtly vomited on.

[Arachu]

Well, you need to clean it once in a while

EDIT:

*Climbs atop a mountain peak*

"World! HEAR ME!!!

For I have discovered... BREWING!!!"