Dwarf Fortress III: Instant Fun : Just Add Magma

[dgnslyr]

GAAAH
A pair of ambushes came, and decimated my fortress. WHY IS THEIR AI SO BAD. On the plus side, the caravan that was wiped out left all their goods, so free stuff for me.

Edit: Is it normal for Elven Recruits to be intermingled with the Goblin invaders?

[Rockphed]

GAAAH
A pair of ambushes came, and decimated my fortress. WHY IS THEIR AI SO BAD. On the plus side, the caravan that was wiped out left all their goods, so free stuff for me.

Edit: Is it normal for Elven Recruits to be intermingled with the Goblin invaders?

Considering that Goblins frequently baby snatch, yeah.

[dgnslyr]

Considering that Goblins frequently baby snatch, yeah.

Consistently? I think there's been an Elf in nearly every ambush...

Edit: Zom Stasostsumtu Snokuzzedan is their general/Elf recruit. Strange tidings indeed. Have I stumbled upon the Cacame Awemedinade of Goblins? Frightening thought indeed.

[Rockphed]

Consistently? I think there's been an Elf in nearly every ambush...

Edit: Zom Stasostsumtu Snokuzzedan is their general/Elf recruit. Strange tidings indeed. Have I stumbled upon the Cacame Awemedinade of Goblins? Frightening thought indeed.

The really fun thing is that there might not be any real goblins left in the goblin civ. As such, every time the game needs a real historical figure, it ends up grabbing some other race.

[dgnslyr]

The really fun thing is that there might not be any real goblins left in the goblin civ. As such, every time the game needs a real historical figure, it ends up grabbing some other race.

The king of goblins is still a goblin, so I'm pretty sure they haven't been wiped out. Also, where would the ambushes come from? I don't think ambushes are spontaneously generated. Still, strange that the goblins have an elf as their general, with elves in the ranks of their soldiers.

[Rockphed]

The king of goblins is still a goblin, so I'm pretty sure they haven't been wiped out. Also, where would the ambushes come from? I don't think ambushes are spontaneously generated. Still, strange that the goblins have an elf as their general, with elves in the ranks of their soldiers.

For the time being, ambushes ARE just generated, except for historical figures that are leaders some times.

If you are getting more than 1 elf per ambush party, you have found something outside my experience.

[Lord Herman]

For the time being, ambushes ARE just generated, except for historical figures that are leaders some times.

If you are getting more than 1 elf per ambush party, you have found something outside my experience.

Ok, so that's why kidnapped elves/humans/dorfs show up only as ambush leaders while the rest of the ambush is always goblins. Interesting.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

In any kind of siege or ambush, all combatants are created ex nihilo. Squad leaders may or may not be created ex nihilo.

[hajo]

An update has been announced:
09/15/2010: Released Dwarf Fortress 0.31.13

[Aidan305]

Does anyone have any tips for creating a functional military. I designate a squad to get equipped with training weapons, and then equip them with proper weapons once they've learned to use them a bit. But then they go and get slaughtered by the first goblin to walk through my gates. I find myself being forced to rely solely on traps and bridges to protect myself.

[dgnslyr]

Does anyone have any tips for creating a functional military. I designate a squad to get equipped with training weapons, and then equip them with proper weapons once they've learned to use them a bit. But then they go and get slaughtered by the first goblin to walk through my gates. I find myself being forced to rely solely on traps and bridges to protect myself.

Wardogs. Much more reliable. Other than that, just have all your dwarves retreat to your fortress, and let the goblins gib themselves on your traps.

[Ranielle]

Started playing a few times, but could never get my dorfs to mine so they just died at the starting camp.

[Rockphed]

Does anyone have any tips for creating a functional military. I designate a squad to get equipped with training weapons, and then equip them with proper weapons once they've learned to use them a bit. But then they go and get slaughtered by the first goblin to walk through my gates. I find myself being forced to rely solely on traps and bridges to protect myself.

Don't use training weapons: instead ensure that your military is entirely armed and armored, and then set them to train at a barracks. I have never had my entire army withstand a gobbo invasion, but then I have never managed to get my army armored before the gobbos show up.

Also, don't use iron or copper weapons unless you absolutely have to. Bronze and steel are much, much better.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Started playing a few times, but could never get my dorfs to mine so they just died at the starting camp.

You need one pick (material doesn't matter) and enable mining on at least one of your dwarves.

[factotum]

And you can also build everything you need to keep your dwarves alive aboveground, if you want to; it's often a good plan to do that to get them started while you excavate more permanent residences.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Well you have to dig if you want stone or ore. Otherwise your only building material is wood and that isn't firesafe so no glass or other furnaces.

[factotum]

Well you have to dig if you want stone or ore. Otherwise your only building material is wood and that isn't firesafe so no glass or other furnaces.

Well, you don't actually need furnaces to just keep the dwarves from starving to death, do you?

[ObadiahtheSlim]

If you are just trying to avoid starvation, you can just gather plants. You still need to get building materials one way or another. That means you need to dig or cut down trees. Both of those requires something to start with.

I suppose you could do the minimum start. If you have coal deposits, you can get everything you could ever need by embarking with 1 metal ore and 1 anvil. If you don't have any coal deposits, you need 2 metal ores.

[Psionic Dog]

Anyone have any tips for underwater basket weaving and other more constructive dwarven tasks?

For my 2nd fortress I picked a map with an aquifer, thinking it would help solve the well woes I had with my first fortress. They survey team warned that there might be mining difficulties, but since the plan was to run a leather industry for trade goods and use skyscrapers for housing I wasn't too worried.

Only trouble is "difficult stone extraction" appears to have been an understatement. I haven't been able to mine a single rock to make a mechanism with: Just lots and lots of damp sand, damp clay, and damp loam. So far I've got one stone block I bought off a passing caravan. I'm starting to think I may have to mine through the aquifer(s), which will probably be Fun.

So, any tips on underwater mining or advanced pump construction?

[ObadiahtheSlim]

A few ways to breach an aquifer.

1.) Cave in method. Cave in the layer of soil above it into the aquifer level. You will be able to dig through the "plug"

2.) Freeze Method. Channel out an area and wait for it to freeze. Mine out the frozen stuff and replace it with wooden walls (or stone, but wood is easier to come by).

3.) Magma Method. Not really feasible now that magma pipes don't really exist anymore. But pour in magma to a channeled out aquifer to create an Obsidian Hole.

4.) Moses Method: Lots of pumps and windmills will let you remove the water enough so you can dam up the aquifer.

5.) Vein Breach. You gotta be pretty lucky, but if you can find a vein or large cluster of a non-aquifer metal/gem in the aquifer, you can go through that to breach it. Really only applies to stone aquifers like chalk. Pretty hard to do that on a soil aquifer. Only problem is you need mechanisms for that and they can be hard to come by. Just ask for lots of different light stones (not blocks). You can also ask for metal bars since in 31.x you can make mechanisms from metal.

[Rockphed]

Multiple layer aquifers are much harder to work through, though if the entire aquifer is stone, it becomes much easier.

In a recent fort, I had 2 layers of soil aquifer. I proceeded through the first one really, really fast. It probably took me all of an in game month to get through.

The second layer, on the other hand, took me something closer to 2 in game years to get through. It took forever. Partially this was because I was doing it wrong, but it was also because building walls in wet places does not work well.

On the other hand, piercing stone aquifers is fiendishly easy. Just dig out your stair and some space for pumps on every side. Since aquifers absorb water as fast as you can dump it into them, this makes for a very powerful system, especially because it can be used to go down an arbitrary number of levels just by flipping all the pumps, smoothing the area that was being used as drainage, and then digging out the level below exactly like the level above.

[JeminiZero]

Only trouble is "difficult stone extraction" appears to have been an understatement. I haven't been able to mine a single rock to make a mechanism with: Just lots and lots of damp sand, damp clay, and damp loam. So far I've got one stone block I bought off a passing caravan. I'm starting to think I may have to mine through the aquifer(s), which will probably be Fun.

Another possibility: Get plenty of Charcoal. If the map has forests (and wet areas usually do), you can cut down trees, and burn the lumber to make Charcoal. Then collect sand and put the Charcoal+Sand through Glass Forges to make glass blocks. Glass blocks can be used to do almost everything that stone blocks can.

[Rockphed]

Another possibility: Get plenty of Charcoal. If the map has forests (and wet areas usually do), you can cut down trees, and burn the lumber to make Charcoal. Then collect sand and put the Charcoal+Sand through Glass Forges to make glass blocks. Glass blocks can be used to do almost everything that stone blocks can.

He still needs to get stone to start that process.

On the other hand, if you prepare carefully, then bringing a dozen or so raw stone is probably a really, really good idea.

[Psionic Dog]

I think I'm working with two adjacent multilevel aquifers in soil. It's a river/canyon system, with the occasional dry crack. The deepest dig site managed to make it 2 levels or so below the river before getting blocked, and found unmarked damp earth on 4+ z-levels. I'm a little worried about pressure effects whenever I finally do tap into it.

Luckily I did start with enough stone (2) to start a glass industry, so block construction isn't a worry. I'm just missing mechanisms. No traps, no levers, etc. I also started with a breading pair of dogs, so I may try using tethered war dogs to take the place of traps once the puppies grow. Just hope those live longer than the captured Rhesus macaque i tried to use last time.

[Lord_Gareth]

Has, ah, anyone come up with something more sick and horrible than the mermaid breeding farm yet?

[Blayze]

Decided to start trying to learn this game earlier today, so I scribbled down an idea for an irrigation system for a farm. I'm concerned it's not dwarfy (Read: Needlessly overcomplicated and prone to spectacular and catastrophic failure) enough.

Also, mining straight upwards. Can it be done? And how do I go about placing pumps in a vertical shaft?

Edit: Rotated picture so that only the scribblings on the left require head-tilting.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

You can mine a set of stairs straight up no problem. I've not much experience with pumpstacks. All of my pumping was pretty much in 40d when I took water from an underground river to pump it to a well and to flood an area for a tree farm.

[Shpadoinkle]

Decided to start trying to learn this game earlier today, so I scribbled down an idea for an irrigation system for a farm. I'm concerned it's not dwarfy (Read: Needlessly overcomplicated and prone to spectacular and catastrophic failure) enough.

Also, mining straight upwards. Can it be done? And how do I go about placing pumps in a vertical shaft?

Edit: Rotated picture so that only the scribblings on the left require head-tilting.

Looks like it should work (assuming everything goes right.) It should be noted, though, that water won't pressurize on its own in DF- if you pump water into the bottom of a 10 Z-level high shaft from the side with nowhere for it to go but up, it won't fill up. If you want to raise it, you'll have to build a pump on the level above, hence pump stacks.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

If you are really worried about pressure, make a shaft that leads to the edge of the map. Then carve fortifications on the edge. Water can drain off through there. Just keep in mind that anything pushed by the water into the fortifications will forever be inaccessible.

[Blayze]

"Okay, now all I have to do is wait until the water spreads out far enough and build the Farm Plot th--STOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"

So yeah, learned I have to get rid of things that are in the way. Stockpiles to the rescue!