Dwarf Fortress III: Instant Fun : Just Add Magma

[ObadiahtheSlim]

From the bay12games forums I've seen that for armor and bladed weapons it goes Silver < Copper < Iron < Bronze < Steel < REDACTED

[Milskidasith]

From the bay12games forums I've seen that for armor and bladed weapons it goes Silver < Copper < Iron < Bronze < Steel < REDACTED

I recognize that.

Also, I have a military dwarf who's got a broken arm, but when he was being hauled back, a weak ass crundle scared the guy hauling him, and now he's just sitting in the caverns, with no job to haul him. He has "heals quickly" and it went from red to yellow, so hopefully he heals up on his own fast enough to not die... I already have three dead, which is a rarity for me (In order: Ambushed by goblins, Insanity, died of thirst while imprisoned, still ecstatic about beating up the sheriff.)

EDIT: Arm was yellow, but he got back and it wasn't broken. He has some bruises, and an artery was severed, along with a motor and sensory nerve, so it turns out he has a hard time grasping his weapon; in combat he dropped it recently, so it seems as if that's really the truth. This game is hardcore.

EDIT: And I'm losing multiple dwarves to a terribly weak goblin force because my actually trained military absolutely refuses to leave the base even when given kill orders, just dancing around the door.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Kill orders seemed a bit buggy. I always use move orders. Far more reliable. I think I may set up a burrow for the entrance and then use alerts and schedules for them to go defend an area.

[Milskidasith]

Kill orders seemed a bit buggy. I always use move orders. Far more reliable. I think I may set up a burrow for the entrance and then use alerts and schedules for them to go defend an area.

Luckily I had the power of savescumming to rescue me (I refuse to lose five dwarves and a human caravan to bugs; if my dwarfs legitimately failed, I'm fine with their deaths, though.)

[Rockphed]

Oddly, I lost an entire fort to bugs. Specifically, the "Melting in the rain" bug. That was no fun at all.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

That has thankfully been fixed in 30.04. I had to stop my mist generator because I was worried I'd loose someone in the magma forges because of it.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Had my first forgotten beast get into my fort. I was doing some digging to try and find my 3rd cavern. Little did I realize that the forgotten beast in the 2nd cavern layer could get down into the third layer. Mason had been taking a break so the wall to seal off the cavern wasn't finished. Fortunately, the beast didn't have any nasty breath attack. His dust seemed harmless and his boiling blood didn't hurt my militia. Gave a custom name to the axedwarf who cut it's head off.

Then the human caravan that had been chilling in my depot decides to leave via the caverns I had opened Military had to escort them in case some nasty beasties tried to attack the caravan. 1 Cave Floater did attack, but my militia killed it with ease.

[Milskidasith]

Had my first forgotten beast get into my fort. I was doing some digging to try and find my 3rd cavern. Little did I realize that the forgotten beast in the 2nd cavern layer could get down into the third layer. Mason had been taking a break so the wall to seal off the cavern wasn't finished. Fortunately, the beast didn't have any nasty breath attack. His dust seemed harmless and his boiling blood didn't hurt my militia. Gave a custom name to the axedwarf who cut it's head off.

Then the human caravan that had been chilling in my depot decides to leave via the caverns I had opened Military had to escort them in case some nasty beasties tried to attack the caravan. 1 Cave Floater did attack, but my militia killed it with ease.

My military just fought off a goblin ambush, or two. Unfortunately, they were marksgoblins.

First one: A kitten and a low rank brewer (only skills were novice grower and OK brewer) get shot to death and bleed out, military arrives, the day is won, though an axe lord gets his hand shot open.

Second one: Bowgoblins shoot from above a lake I had dug out to irrigate my farms, killing one dwarf and cutting open the leg of another. Military fights, my two injuries are a cut open eyelid and a lost ear.

Both of the military dwarfs bleed to death.

MY DWARF DIED TO A FRIGGING CUT EYELID.

EDIT: Luckily, another dwarf who got hit by a troll in the caverns spent most of the time getting strangled, so my military had time to arrive, and he's only suffered a few injuries that don't seem to be bleeding at all. Good experience for my medical staff (of 1), without much risk of death. I think.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Think about it. Poor guy probably had a nasty gouge running across half his face.

Anyway yeah, i hate it when civilians are the ones who trigger the ambush. I once had a mason who was just finishing up walling in the caldera when some goblins ambushed him. I was lucky he was rather agile. He could outrun the goblins until the military arrived.

[Destro_Yersul]

I always laugh in my 40d fort when the ambushes are triggered by champions. A bunch of goblins once ambushed CEROL. all of them ended up at least ten squarse from their starting position, torsos smashed open by CEROL's mighty hammer.

[Milskidasith]

Think about it. Poor guy probably had a nasty gouge running across half his face.

No, *only* his eyelid was cut. The rest of his face was perfectly fine.

Anyway yeah, i hate it when civilians are the ones who trigger the ambush. I once had a mason who was just finishing up walling in the caldera when some goblins ambushed him. I was lucky he was rather agile. He could outrun the goblins until the military arrived.

Well in my case, all the civilians triggering ambushes were low value, which is nice. Unfortunately, two of my military dwarves now have infected wounds that have been treated, so I don't know what's going to happen there.

Another military dwarf just got injured fighting a troll; while the thing can't gore anybody with armor on, he got him in a hold by his elbow, which I think may be broken. The dwarf that was choked by the troll collapsed in pain on a cage trap and nobody has had the heart to remove him yet, so... yeah.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

If you want to get him out, build the cage, hook it to a lever, and then pull the lever. Only way I know of to reliably get a dwarf out of a cage.

[Milskidasith]

If you want to get him out, build the cage, hook it to a lever, and then pull the lever. Only way I know of to reliably get a dwarf out of a cage.

He died before I read this post.

In good news, however, I have learned Ant warrior spearmen are very good at breaking every bone in a creatures body without killing it. How?

Two example: The first is my dwarf. Or, my grand master gem cutter. Got destroyed, made it to the hospital, bled out after having four and a half pages of injuries.

Second example: The forgotten beast in my fortress. I discovered it earlier, and periodically had messages like "It is no longer enraged!" and once or twice "Ant warrior has bonded to X weapon" but they were never in site... my military, conducting some recon, just found them, three ant warriors dead, with one ant warrior having a few broken bones, and the forgotten beast almost completely destroyed. Go ants!

EDIT: Bad news is, based on its forty odd pages of scarring that weren't there earlier, they aren't actually going to *kill* it, and it's going to recover.

EDIT: Actually, it has over one hundred pages of new scars. Damn.

EDIT: Fight has been going on for three months. I just struck the Cyan goodness, while attempting to tunnel a path to the beast so I could finish it off.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

You got an unkillable beast there. Your best hope is to use magma.

[Milskidasith]

You got an unkillable beast there. Your best hope is to use magma.

I didn't break into the circus, I just found the top of the tent. I'm pretty sure it's safe to shave a few layers of fabric off the top without falling in.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

No, your forgotten beast. It sounds like you have an unkillable one. Drop magma on it and solve your problem.

[Milskidasith]

No, your forgotten beast. It sounds like you have an unkillable one. Drop magma on it and solve your problem.

Oh no, it's dead. It was made of skin, though it did have purple hair.

It's just, with the combat system the way it was, and the Forgotten Beasts size, it couldn't be bled out by a flimsy wooden spear, because the wounds wouldn't cause enough bleeding.

It got chopped up REAL nice. Also, I'm getting an clownite... trinket being made, ATM. Stupid engraver claimed a craftsdwarfs workshop, but at least it'll be worth an absurd amount of money. I've got a few clownite wafers ATM, so I'll be making some clownite weapons or clownite armor sets, I'm not really sure yet.

Based on research done, iron armor is generally more than enough against weapons from every other species, since they don't tend to be able to penetrate and, since a full set of clownite armor is a ton of wafers, while weapons are quite a few less... clownite weapons it is!

EDIT: The clownite trinket is a statue... of a baby dwarf getting eaten by a giant cave spider. It's a third the value of the fortress, registering at 630 thousand Urists in value.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Throw that into a room and watch as your happiness problems go away. All those "completely sublime statue" happy thoughts really do wonders.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Just after I posted that, I started playing. A kid got a mood and started grabbing stuff. He tried grabbing raw adamantine, an adamantine wafer, my green diamond. Had to be quick on the forbid and dump commands. Didn't want some useless trinket taking up half my precious resources.

[Koboldshroud]

Ahh! my brain is overloaded! i downloaded (loadedloadedloaded) DF but i dont know how to do -anything- okay i can move, butt beside, i cant do -anything- i cant zoom in budah! just help me by the great red kobold in the sky!

[Shpadoinkle]

Ahh! my brain is overloaded! i downloaded (loadedloadedloaded) DF but i dont know how to do -anything- okay i can move, butt beside, i cant do -anything- i cant zoom in budah! just help me by the great red kobold in the sky!

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/...ss-part-1-wtf/

Note that this is for a previous version of the game, but it'll help you understand how to do things and what's going on. This game has less of a learning curve than a learning cliff, but once you get the hang of how the interface works it's actually fairly easy unless you make challenges for yourself ("This fortress will never trade with anyone! This fortress will be alcohol free! This fortress will never use the Masonry labor!" etc.)

The interface is, BY FAR, the most difficult to learn thing about the game. Everything else you can learn with a little experimenting and a few trips to the wiki. (The wiki is seperated into info for current and previous version of the game- if you're following the guide in the link above you'll want the v0.28.181.40d pages.)

[Gaelbert]

I've been working on DF for a few hours now and I have the hang of it, except for one thing. Whenever I try to plant my farms, it tells me I don't have any seeds. I know I have seeds. What am I doing wrong?

[Lord Herman]

I've been working on DF for a few hours now and I have the hang of it, except for one thing. Whenever I try to plant my farms, it tells me I don't have any seeds. I know I have seeds. What am I doing wrong?

Is it possible you have built an aboveground farm and you have only seeds for cave plants? The seeds you embark with are all for cave plants like plump helmets.

If you want seeds for aboveground plants, you can get them by gathering shrubs ([d], [p]) and having your dorfs eat them or brew them into booze. That leaves seeds which you can then plant.

[Shpadoinkle]

If you're trying to plant stuff underground, you can only do that on muddy tiles. As the game tells you, mud is left by water.

You can try pouring water from a level above where you want your farm plots, or you can build a reservior and use that to use it to carefullly flood your farms, or you can dig down to the natural caverns and plant on the pre-muddied tles there (but make sure to wall off everything you build down there or else you'll enconter some Fun things.)

[Gaelbert]

Is it possible you have built an aboveground farm and you have only seeds for cave plants? The seeds you embark with are all for cave plants like plump helmets.

If you want seeds for aboveground plants, you can get them by gathering shrubs ([d], [p]) and having your dorfs eat them or brew them into booze. That leaves seeds which you can then plant.

I'll try to do some aboveground farms and see if that works.

My other problem is that I can't move up and down levels. I've built a stairway down, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to move down. I know it's supposed to be shift+> but that's just not working. I can't change levels.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Not sure what to tell you. The <> keys are for moving up and down z levels and I've never had trouble with them.

Although to have your dwarves do it, they need a down stairs on the higher level and an up stairs on the lower level. An up/down stair will do the same.


Anyway I'm working on some magma traps for my two unkillable forgotten beasts. They are sealed away right not not causing any trouble but I would like to be able to use those caverns to get some silk. Anyone know if BUILDINGDESTROYER:2 critters are still unable to destroy raised bridges and hatches that are above them?

[Lord Herman]

I'll try to do some aboveground farms and see if that works.

My other problem is that I can't move up and down levels. I've built a stairway down, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to move down. I know it's supposed to be shift+> but that's just not working. I can't change levels.

Check your key bindings ([esc] -> Key Bindings). Chances are the binding for moving up and down got messed up.

[Gaelbert]

Check your key bindings ([esc] -> Key Bindings). Chances are the binding for moving up and down got messed up.

Yeah, that was it.
I have a ton of gold too. What should I do with it?

[Dragero]

As mundane as this sounds:

Mugs.

Make everything into mugs! Rocks, gold, silver, bones, dwarves, EVERYTHING must be mugged!

Mugs are lightweight and worth a ton when sold.

(Or a =Gold statue of a Tenticle Demon=)

[ObadiahtheSlim]

You can make useful things to with the gold. Make buckets, bins and barrels with them. You can never have too many bins or barrels. Too bad you can't make bags out of gold. Then you'd have all those 'b' words that you never seem to have enough of.

Also you can smelt that gold with other metals to create fun alloys like rose gold and electrum. They don't give you any extra value, but some dwarves have a preference for them and get happy thoughts seeing things made of them.