I'm not as "thoroughly versed" in the world of Dwarf Fortress yet... and I do have various questions... but I'll limit it to a couple that I'm most curious about.
How does the entire inventory system work? Do you assign finished items/creations to specific dwarves, or will random dwarves go to them and wear/use them on their own?
Also, what is the importance of lava? How do you utilize it to assist you with forging (forgery..?) Does it replace another aspect of the game?
Lastly... I've only recently gotten the hang of getting the "worth" out of slain animals... but how do you make the process more efficient? Example: Something is slain. Assume my hunter brings it to a corpse stockpile. My butcher takes it and chops it up into the useful pieces (leather, meat, bones, etc)... but leaves them all in the butcher's shop. Let's now say that I assign tasks at the following workshops: tanner, kitchen, and uhm... the crafting one. My bonecrafter takes bones from the butchery and does his job. My tanner takes leather and does his job. But, my kitchen/cook takes food from the barrels rather than the raw meat from the butcher. How do I get them to immediately cook the raw meat that was just made? On that same note, how do I have them store that cooked food in barrels? (The entire barrel concept is a little above my head, so detail in how to utilize them would be very much appreciated!)
Sorry for the lengthy inquiry, but I'd like to enjoy the game to the fullest, and these concepts are keeping me confuzzled. Thanks much!
In the stocks screen (z) you can turn off cooking for other things.
Also, you should have stockpiles for bones (it'll go in the refuse stockpile, but you should have one specifically for bones/shells/skulls indoors since refuse left outside disappears occasionally) and raw hide so that the butchers shop doesn't get cluttered if the other workers get backed up. It's possible that a stockpile for meat specifically may be sufficient to make the kitchen grab that before other food. Other than clutter, another good reason for stockpiles is that stuff rots more slowly in stockpiles and/or underground.
The meat should be getting moved to the food stockpile [and stored in barrels if there are any] immediately after the butcher works (the cook will then get it out of the stockpile); is your food stockpile full and/or you do not have enough barrels?
I don't think prepared meals can be placed in barrels. They won't rot if placed on a stockpile anyway, though it'd be a good idea to arrange things so your dwarves won't walk over them, since I think they can still rot that way.
I am considering just making a fort full of weapon & armor smiths to get tons of legendary equipped champions.
How does that work? You don't get mastercraft items by having a lot of dwarves make items, you get mastercraft items by having a single dwarf do all the work. It maximizes his xp gain, which improves the odds of mastercraft gear.
What I'm talking about are ARTIFACTS, sorry I should have used the term. Running with the theory (though it's unrealistic) that if 100% of your dwarfs best skill is armor/weapon making, then your Artifacts should be 100% weapons and armor rather than sock and floodgate.
When/if you get your dungeon master, make a forge, lock that forge to him only, and unleash him on repeated iron caps and iron swords. Because the dungeon master is a noble, he does nothing else, which makes him an extremely efficient smith.
He's also extremely unlikely to get killed, because he has no reason to go outside. It makes him a very safe dwarf to target for legendary status. He's also immune to punishment, so if you get caught ignoring production demands, he never gets thrown in jail (or worse, hammered).
That's a pretty good idea, I usually have mine train animals and Smelt ore.
Some cooked meals will be put in barrels.. most of it doesn't though.
Butchery is always a dicey job, because stuff rots really fast and unless you got a decent number of idle dwarves, there's a good chance they won't store it before it goes bad.
There's really nothing you can do about it.. short of ensuring you have a sufficient hauling workforce.
Thanks for the answers, I'll definetly look into that. About the meat, though... thinking about it, they are essentially still grabbing raw meat that I "prepared my journey" for... but I'd rather them grab the meat from the butcher... or at least learn how to put that butchered meat into barrels. Do barrels have a set size limit that anything can be put into... or do beer barrels only hold beer, food only food, etc...?
They will prefer to put similar things into barrels (that's why you get "food barrels" or "fish barrels" or "plant barrels") when possible; also, drinks are special - if a barrel contains a drink it cannot contain anything else (even more of the same kind of drink - it can only contain one stack from one brew job). But any empty barrel can be reused for something else if it's empty, even if it still has a type label.
Make more barrels and a larger stockpile if you want them to move the meat from the butcher shop into barrels.
In the stocks screen (z) you can turn off cooking for other things.
Also, you should have stockpiles for bones (it'll go in the refuse stockpile, but you should have one specifically for bones/shells/skulls indoors since refuse left outside disappears occasionally) and raw hide so that the butchers shop doesn't get cluttered if the other workers get backed up. It's possible that a stockpile for meat specifically may be sufficient to make the kitchen grab that before other food. Other than clutter, another good reason for stockpiles is that stuff rots more slowly in stockpiles and/or underground.
The meat should be getting moved to the food stockpile [and stored in barrels if there are any] immediately after the butcher works (the cook will then get it out of the stockpile); is your food stockpile full and/or you do not have enough barrels?
I don't think prepared meals can be placed in barrels. They won't rot if placed on a stockpile anyway, though it'd be a good idea to arrange things so your dwarves won't walk over them, since I think they can still rot that way.
When I craft barrels, will they be automatically placed in certain stockpiles and used for whatever is needed?
Here's a general question - How does everyone prepare for "dinner", persay? Are you constantly pumping out meals all day for when dwarves get hungry, so they can just grab them from the kitchen/stocks? I know nearly everything happens on it's own, I'm just not sure what I do need to be involved in when it comes to upkeep with food.
Ittasrumad, "Tenderdulled", a Red grossular earring
This is a Red grossular earring. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is encrusted with Red grossular, decorated with turtle shell and pike leather and encircled with bands of Red grossular, clear glass and Rhyolite. This object is adorned with hanging rings of Red grossular and menaces with spikes of sea lamprey leather.
On the item is an image of a dwarf and dwarves in Rhyolite. The dwarf is surrounded by the dwarves.
On the item is an image of a ballista arrow in dog bone.
OMG, a red grossular earring with menacing spikes of sea lamprey? Hawt. So want.
When I craft barrels, will they be automatically placed in certain stockpiles and used for whatever is needed?
Empty barrels go on the furniture stockpile and they'll be used as needed. You can reserve barrels to make sure a food stockpile always has some barrels (it's good to do this for a drinks stockpile so that when you're running low on drinks you'll have empty barrels that won't be grabbed for something other than brewing)
Here's a general question - How does everyone prepare for "dinner", persay? Are you constantly pumping out meals all day for when dwarves get hungry, so they can just grab them from the kitchen/stocks? I know nearly everything happens on it's own, I'm just not sure what I do need to be involved in when it comes to upkeep with food.
Whenever a dwarf wants to eat, they will go get a piece of food from a stockpile, and then they will take it to (ideally; they'll complain if any of these criteria is not available) a table with a chair by it and no-one else using it (so you should have the same number of chairs as tables) and eat it. When they want to drink, they will go to a stockpile with a barrel of some drink, and drink it on the spot. If you make sure you have plenty of food and drinks you'll be fine, though you may need to micromanage haulers to make sure that stuff gets taken out of the butcher shop and kitchen and put on stockpiles before it rots. One think to watch out for is your seed supply - if you cook plants, you won't get seeds, while you will get them if they're eaten raw, brewed, or with special processing - it's best to disable cooking on your plant crops.
It should be noted that the "process to bag" stage of quarry bushes produces seeds (specifically, rock nuts), which makes quarry bushes extremely safe to have on cook (not to mention quarry bush meals sell for $texas dimdums, but that's another conversation).
The only hard part about quarry bushes is you need bags to contain the leaves, which means it'll probably take at least a year before your fort can deal with them.
So what I do is disable cooking plump helmet and use them only for brewing, as brewing will produce a seed. Then the kitchen gets all the quarry bush leaves it can use.
You don't "assign things to barrels", you just have some barrels laying around and your haulers will condense them into containers (like barrels for food and bins for some other things). If you don't have barrels available they will just put things into individual spots in your food stockpile.
There are three things I do to help fight food-rot issues:
1) All my workshops are 3x3 rooms with 2 doorways. I always make sure to have doors on the Kitchen and Farm Workshops so that the miasma is contained in case of rot.
2) I leave Food Hauling turned on for almost every dwarf. Because of this fact it almost never gets neglected, and also it almost never bothers "important" dwarves since there are so many people on top of it.
3) Location location location! Keep related work areas and stockpiles close to each other. use Z levels!
Another trick to help contain miasma - it doesn't spread diagonally in current versions - Putting a pillar in front of the opening is more reliable than using a door since then it can't spread even when a dwarf opens the door.
It should be noted that the "process to bag" stage of quarry bushes produces seeds (specifically, rock nuts), which makes quarry bushes extremely safe to have on cook (not to mention quarry bush meals sell for $texas dimdums, but that's another conversation).
Like I said, special processing - so does process to barrel (syrup from sweet pods), milling, or making thread. Cooking is about the only thing that doesn't produce seeds (also doesn't produce bones for fish)
The only hard part about quarry bushes is you need bags to contain the leaves, which means it'll probably take at least a year before your fort can deal with them.
So what I do is disable cooking plump helmet and use them only for brewing, as brewing will produce a seed. Then the kitchen gets all the quarry bush leaves it can use.
Turning off cooking for all seed types and all beverage types (you don't want all your beers turned into "Dwarven Rum Roast" and the like) is indeed highly advisable. I do allow the cooking of imported alcohols from the human and elf traders because that generally makes them much higher quality. I also turn off cooking on Turtles/Lobsters so I don't lose the shells(they disappear when you cook them but are retained if eaten raw), and sometimes other things.
I bring 20-25 cheap (10 dimdum each) bags for year1 quarry bush operations. As soon as my dwarves embark, I make a 5x5 plot and start planting Quarry Bushes immediately. This is a temporary farm, usually in the front hallway of my fort but sometimes just in a random hole I dig just to make the plot. It will get dismantled as soon as the real farm gets plotted - the entire purpose is to produce a couple quarry bush roasts by the time the fall caravan rolls around so I can at bare minimum trade for an anvil. :P
I've heard, but not done the math myself, that starting with the anvil is not too bad a deal if you instead start without picks or axes (you'll save money by bringing bars along instead, and you can only embark with steel axes, but you can make an axe from cheaper iron) - also, not starting with the anvil is a form of gambling - you have the risk that the traders won't bring an anvil at all, or will bring a steel one for triple the cost.
I've heard, but not done the math myself, that starting with the anvil is not too bad a deal if you instead start without picks or axes (you'll save money by bringing bars along instead, and you can only embark with steel axes, but you can make an axe from cheaper iron) - also, not starting with the anvil is a form of gambling - you have the risk that the traders won't bring an anvil at all, or will bring a steel one for triple the cost.
I have not started with an anvil since my first week playing DF and I never will.
I generally look for magma, so channeling the magma path and waiting for it to flow where I need it gives me plenty of time to get the anvil. It almost always shows up in the first fall(hasn't missed in so long that I might even venture that it's 100% present now), and if it doesn't I don't much mind waiting a year max.
Bringing iron and charcoal and an anvil to save the cost of the axe doesn't sound worth it unless you are already fine with bringing the anvil.
I put my butcher shops in their own little room in case meat gets left to rot. Same with the refuse piles. If you have them doored off, miasma won't spread outside, and dwarves will just run in a get whatever they need then leave, so they don't get bad feelings from the miasma.
Also, I haven't done anything with processing sweet pods into syrup, I've just been using them for milling into sugar and brewing into rum. Is it worth making the syrup, is it valuable?
edit: Actually, I have a realy question. I'm using your graphic set mayday, but for whatever reason my miners are the only dwarves not using the correct graphic. They're using the scrawny dwarf with a white beard and pick; they SHOULD be the dwarf with the miner hard-hat. Here's a section of the my graphics_example file:
tehmarken: I have no idea.
Please make sure that in dorfs.bmp, the miner is on the first tile of the second row.
I'm actually having a similar problem with the human diplomat graphics- no idea what's going on.
I'll be releasing a new DFG soon (in a few hours) so if you could download it and just replace the graphics folder- maybe it will fix stuff.
BTW: For an experiment, I've been playing in ASCII for the last few days and have just returned to my graphics- I must admit that even with the messed up text, the graphic version is still much more readable for me.
Hmmm, good to know. Maybe I'll try copying it to another row and redfining where to pull the graphics from.
But that's cool you're putting out another version. I haven't up to date with your stuff (just been transferring the graphics over the last few DF updates), you putting in any new graphics or just syncing up with the lastest df version?
The only hard part about quarry bushes is you need bags to contain the leaves, which means it'll probably take at least a year before your fort can deal with them.
So what I do is disable cooking plump helmet and use them only for brewing, as brewing will produce a seed. Then the kitchen gets all the quarry bush leaves it can use.
Turning off cooking for all seed types and all beverage types (you don't want all your beers turned into "Dwarven Rum Roast" and the like) is indeed highly advisable. I do allow the cooking of imported alcohols from the human and elf traders because that generally makes them much higher quality. I also turn off cooking on Turtles/Lobsters so I don't lose the shells(they disappear when you cook them but are retained if eaten raw), and sometimes other things.
Isn't cooking with alcohol incredibly efficient, though? You'd just need to occasionally keep an eye on your stockpiles to make sure you're producing more than you use for cooking.
I took some pics of my under-construction water works:
Here's were it starts coming off the river and leading down into the first moat.
Here we have the moat with a bridge.
One z-level down, you can see where it goes into the mountain a bit before going even further down. Also, there is a side passage that can be opened for emergency drainage, and another that leads to a farming area for irrigation.
Now it briefly travels under my fortress to avoid various important rooms.
It then rises back up and goes around the front of the fort...
...creating the second, main moat that protects my front entrance and depot.
Back underground, the channel dips again to avoid my stockpiles.
And finally goes up and out.
But not before passing under some hatches to allow for water and fish.
Not shown here is my latest change, which is to turn the exit into a side drain and channel it north into a chasm I have up there.
I expect that once I actually test it will end up going horribly wrong somehow.
I'll take some pics of my awesome condo whose entire design and layout was made to showcase the Artifact Granite Door that acts as it's one and only door.
Also, I think I have like two Artifact floor grates now that I have no clue what to do with.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
The only hard part about quarry bushes is you need bags to contain the leaves, which means it'll probably take at least a year before your fort can deal with them.
So what I do is disable cooking plump helmet and use them only for brewing, as brewing will produce a seed. Then the kitchen gets all the quarry bush leaves it can use.
Turning off cooking for all seed types and all beverage types (you don't want all your beers turned into "Dwarven Rum Roast" and the like) is indeed highly advisable. I do allow the cooking of imported alcohols from the human and elf traders because that generally makes them much higher quality. I also turn off cooking on Turtles/Lobsters so I don't lose the shells(they disappear when you cook them but are retained if eaten raw), and sometimes other things.
Isn't cooking with alcohol incredibly efficient, though? You'd just need to occasionally keep an eye on your stockpiles to make sure you're producing more than you use for cooking.
The big benefit to using alcohol to cook is it seems to prevent the "tired of eating the same food" thought that dwarves get, as long as the cooking is done with different types of alcohol.. which causes it to be regarded as a "different" food.
Put the floor grates somewhere where is lots of traffic lately?
Two questions:
1) You said the water rises back up, I don't see any pumps... am I blind? I never really use them except for in the gym so maybe I'm overlooking.
2) What happens to your defenses when the water freezes?
If his water freezes he can just channel it out. A 1-tile wide empty moat is as effective as a massive magma lake.
The "better" solution is to set up the moat so it's 1 z-level below the surface level. So even if it does freeze, it still functions as intended.
I'm pretty sure creatures can climb out of 7/7 water that's on the same z-level as well, so if a goblin were to fall in, there's a chance he could climb out (assuming he doesn't drown first).
Put the floor grates somewhere where is lots of traffic lately?
Two questions:
1) You said the water rises back up, I don't see any pumps... am I blind? I never really use them except for in the gym so maybe I'm overlooking.
2) What happens to your defenses when the water freezes?
1. Water has pressure in DF, so it will come back up to the level of the river (aka the source) wherever it can, including after going down any height. (disclaimer: you have to have enough water to fill the u-bend for it to come out the other side)
2. That would depend on his climate. In a scorching or hot climate, you might have the opposite situation of the water evaporating too fast, which isn't too much of a problem in itself though, just kinda ugly. However if it does freeze, the moat would be effectively useless. To solve this problem, see: magma moat. 8-)
Edit: Beat like a redheaded stepchild.
Another problem with a freezing moat is if it does freeze and then stuff gets piled on top of it, it'll all be washed away/inaccessible when it melts.
Edito de dos: When the water melts, the stuff on top of it that then falls in the water includes any unlucky/dumb dorfs.
1) I have not seen any water freezing on the map. Have not been paying attention? Are some winters colder fan others? I'm in a moderate climate, afaik.
2) My main problem that I may have is actually that the moats as they are now are a z-level below the river, so I put 50/50 odds that, instead of continuing to flow through the tunnels, the water will decide to start overflowing my moats and flooding the outside of my fortress. If this happens I'm going to have to build some walls to raise the moats up even with the river.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
But that's cool you're putting out another version. I haven't up to date with your stuff (just been transferring the graphics over the last few DF updates), you putting in any new graphics or just syncing up with the lastest df version?
Plenty of new stuff- a completely new dwarven and goblin military for example.
2) My main problem that I may have is actually that the moats as they are now are a z-level below the river, so I put 50/50 odds that, instead of continuing to flow through the tunnels, the water will decide to start overflowing my moats and flooding the outside of my fortress. If this happens I'm going to have to build some walls to raise the moats up even with the river.
You can exploit the "physics" in the game by resetting the source level of the water with pumps.
Basically your end result should be you let the river water fill a pit that is at least 1 z-level below where you want the surface of the water to be. Then you hook a pump into this pit so the exit point of the pump is on the same z-level of your moat (remember: pumps pull water from 1 z-level below, and eject it on the same level as the pump).
Installing this system is a lot harder than describing it, so expect some disasters before you get it right. Always save before you turn on the water so you can scum if you have to.
1) I have not seen any water freezing on the map. Have not been paying attention? Are some winters colder fan others? I'm in a moderate climate, afaik.
2) My main problem that I may have is actually that the moats as they are now are a z-level below the river, so I put 50/50 odds that, instead of continuing to flow through the tunnels, the water will decide to start overflowing my moats and flooding the outside of my fortress. If this happens I'm going to have to build some walls to raise the moats up even with the river.
If you haven't seen frozen water during winter, you're probably fine.
As to the moat being lower than the river, as long as the water has somewhere to flow to, it shouldn't go any higher than it needs to. DF has a pretty accurate water simulation, and it should flow sideways before going up.
I'm not as "thoroughly versed" in the world of Dwarf Fortress yet... and I do have various questions... but I'll limit it to a couple that I'm most curious about.
How does the entire inventory system work? Do you assign finished items/creations to specific dwarves, or will random dwarves go to them and wear/use them on their own?
Also, what is the importance of lava? How do you utilize it to assist you with forging (forgery..?) Does it replace another aspect of the game?
Lastly... I've only recently gotten the hang of getting the "worth" out of slain animals... but how do you make the process more efficient? Example: Something is slain. Assume my hunter brings it to a corpse stockpile. My butcher takes it and chops it up into the useful pieces (leather, meat, bones, etc)... but leaves them all in the butcher's shop. Let's now say that I assign tasks at the following workshops: tanner, kitchen, and uhm... the crafting one.
My bonecrafter takes bones from the butchery and does his job. My tanner takes leather and does his job. But, my kitchen/cook takes food from the barrels rather than the raw meat from the butcher. How do I get them to immediately cook the raw meat that was just made? On that same note, how do I have them store that cooked food in barrels? (The entire barrel concept is a little above my head, so detail in how to utilize them would be very much appreciated!)
Sorry for the lengthy inquiry, but I'd like to enjoy the game to the fullest, and these concepts are keeping me confuzzled. Thanks much!
Ok, here's some answers:
Dwarves seem to grab items at random. In the [m]ilitary screen you can set their equipment and they'll equip stuff of that type when they're soldiering or guarding (by which i mean armor type, shields, and weapons)
Lava powers forges and smelters. Without them, you need to make charcoal out of wood and then find bitumous coal or lignite and make those into coke (refined coal). It's a huge labor and timesink, and finding coal can sometimes be hard. Lava makes it all that much easier.
And as to the meat cooking and barrels. MAKE MORE BARRELS. Seriously, you can never have enough barrels. All food and seeds and stored in barrels (seeds in bags first, then bags go into barrels), and your alcohol.
You can also go into the kitchen settings through the status screen [z] and turn cooking off for plants and such so the dwarves will only cook the meat.
Dwarves never select things at random. Ever. There is a method to the madness in every case. When it comes to selecting weapons and armor they select the closest* item that matches their settings when they decide to do the "pickup equipment" job. If you want a dwarf to have a certain thing unequip him entirely and once he is done dropping stuff forbid all the items you don't want him to use.
If I wanted my army to practice with silver swords, for example, I would manufacture silver swords only until I was sure all guards were equipped with one each. Then when they reach a sufficiently high level I would just go into the stockpiles screen and forbid all silver swords, making the guards run off to fetch whatever new swords I have made for them.
My moat is working just as planned, for now. The water has yet to actually reach it's ultimate destination, however after overcoming the various u-bends and what not before this it should be no problem. In the northwestern corner you can see most of my early construction: my farm, first workshops and stockpiles, etc.
Here is a picture of my main living quarters. To the north-west are the cheap, mass production basic units, what one might call dwarven mobile homes except not really mobile at all. To the east of that and south is the nicer full three room set that I made for my expedition leader. However, it seems that when he became a Mayor this was no longer good enough for him. They are now the residence of my Captain of the Guard. North of them is my Mayor's new quarters, a special design made to showcase the awesomeness of my Artifact Granite Door. You can also see my burial chamber and lower refuse heap.
PS: My Mayor is mandating the production of chain mail, but I have nothing to make it out of. What can I do?
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Posts
In the stocks screen (z) you can turn off cooking for other things.
Also, you should have stockpiles for bones (it'll go in the refuse stockpile, but you should have one specifically for bones/shells/skulls indoors since refuse left outside disappears occasionally) and raw hide so that the butchers shop doesn't get cluttered if the other workers get backed up. It's possible that a stockpile for meat specifically may be sufficient to make the kitchen grab that before other food. Other than clutter, another good reason for stockpiles is that stuff rots more slowly in stockpiles and/or underground.
The meat should be getting moved to the food stockpile [and stored in barrels if there are any] immediately after the butcher works (the cook will then get it out of the stockpile); is your food stockpile full and/or you do not have enough barrels?
I don't think prepared meals can be placed in barrels. They won't rot if placed on a stockpile anyway, though it'd be a good idea to arrange things so your dwarves won't walk over them, since I think they can still rot that way.
What I'm talking about are ARTIFACTS, sorry I should have used the term. Running with the theory (though it's unrealistic) that if 100% of your dwarfs best skill is armor/weapon making, then your Artifacts should be 100% weapons and armor rather than sock and floodgate.
That's a pretty good idea, I usually have mine train animals and Smelt ore.
Do nobles ever get Strange Moods?
Butchery is always a dicey job, because stuff rots really fast and unless you got a decent number of idle dwarves, there's a good chance they won't store it before it goes bad.
There's really nothing you can do about it.. short of ensuring you have a sufficient hauling workforce.
They will prefer to put similar things into barrels (that's why you get "food barrels" or "fish barrels" or "plant barrels") when possible; also, drinks are special - if a barrel contains a drink it cannot contain anything else (even more of the same kind of drink - it can only contain one stack from one brew job). But any empty barrel can be reused for something else if it's empty, even if it still has a type label.
Make more barrels and a larger stockpile if you want them to move the meat from the butcher shop into barrels.
When I craft barrels, will they be automatically placed in certain stockpiles and used for whatever is needed?
Here's a general question - How does everyone prepare for "dinner", persay? Are you constantly pumping out meals all day for when dwarves get hungry, so they can just grab them from the kitchen/stocks? I know nearly everything happens on it's own, I'm just not sure what I do need to be involved in when it comes to upkeep with food.
Again, thanks for your answer
OMG, a red grossular earring with menacing spikes of sea lamprey? Hawt. So want.
Empty barrels go on the furniture stockpile and they'll be used as needed. You can reserve barrels to make sure a food stockpile always has some barrels (it's good to do this for a drinks stockpile so that when you're running low on drinks you'll have empty barrels that won't be grabbed for something other than brewing)
Whenever a dwarf wants to eat, they will go get a piece of food from a stockpile, and then they will take it to (ideally; they'll complain if any of these criteria is not available) a table with a chair by it and no-one else using it (so you should have the same number of chairs as tables) and eat it. When they want to drink, they will go to a stockpile with a barrel of some drink, and drink it on the spot. If you make sure you have plenty of food and drinks you'll be fine, though you may need to micromanage haulers to make sure that stuff gets taken out of the butcher shop and kitchen and put on stockpiles before it rots. One think to watch out for is your seed supply - if you cook plants, you won't get seeds, while you will get them if they're eaten raw, brewed, or with special processing - it's best to disable cooking on your plant crops.
The only hard part about quarry bushes is you need bags to contain the leaves, which means it'll probably take at least a year before your fort can deal with them.
So what I do is disable cooking plump helmet and use them only for brewing, as brewing will produce a seed. Then the kitchen gets all the quarry bush leaves it can use.
You don't "assign things to barrels", you just have some barrels laying around and your haulers will condense them into containers (like barrels for food and bins for some other things). If you don't have barrels available they will just put things into individual spots in your food stockpile.
There are three things I do to help fight food-rot issues:
1) All my workshops are 3x3 rooms with 2 doorways. I always make sure to have doors on the Kitchen and Farm Workshops so that the miasma is contained in case of rot.
2) I leave Food Hauling turned on for almost every dwarf. Because of this fact it almost never gets neglected, and also it almost never bothers "important" dwarves since there are so many people on top of it.
3) Location location location! Keep related work areas and stockpiles close to each other. use Z levels!
fake edit:
ok i made a pictar.
Like I said, special processing - so does process to barrel (syrup from sweet pods), milling, or making thread. Cooking is about the only thing that doesn't produce seeds (also doesn't produce bones for fish)
Turning off cooking for all seed types and all beverage types (you don't want all your beers turned into "Dwarven Rum Roast" and the like) is indeed highly advisable. I do allow the cooking of imported alcohols from the human and elf traders because that generally makes them much higher quality. I also turn off cooking on Turtles/Lobsters so I don't lose the shells(they disappear when you cook them but are retained if eaten raw), and sometimes other things.
I bring 20-25 cheap (10 dimdum each) bags for year1 quarry bush operations. As soon as my dwarves embark, I make a 5x5 plot and start planting Quarry Bushes immediately. This is a temporary farm, usually in the front hallway of my fort but sometimes just in a random hole I dig just to make the plot. It will get dismantled as soon as the real farm gets plotted - the entire purpose is to produce a couple quarry bush roasts by the time the fall caravan rolls around so I can at bare minimum trade for an anvil. :P
e~ my byootifl pictar was unjustly botp'd.
I have not started with an anvil since my first week playing DF and I never will.
I generally look for magma, so channeling the magma path and waiting for it to flow where I need it gives me plenty of time to get the anvil. It almost always shows up in the first fall(hasn't missed in so long that I might even venture that it's 100% present now), and if it doesn't I don't much mind waiting a year max.
Bringing iron and charcoal and an anvil to save the cost of the axe doesn't sound worth it unless you are already fine with bringing the anvil.
Also, I haven't done anything with processing sweet pods into syrup, I've just been using them for milling into sugar and brewing into rum. Is it worth making the syrup, is it valuable?
edit:
This is the most useful page I ever found, it helps you with dwarves taken by strange moods, possessed, etc. http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Strange_mood
Guess it's time to make more barrels.
edit: Actually, I have a realy question. I'm using your graphic set mayday, but for whatever reason my miners are the only dwarves not using the correct graphic. They're using the scrawny dwarf with a white beard and pick; they SHOULD be the dwarf with the miner hard-hat. Here's a section of the my graphics_example file:
Could that spacing be what's messing up my miner graphic?
Oh boy, the macabre moods should be completely random.
Please make sure that in dorfs.bmp, the miner is on the first tile of the second row.
I'm actually having a similar problem with the human diplomat graphics- no idea what's going on.
I'll be releasing a new DFG soon (in a few hours) so if you could download it and just replace the graphics folder- maybe it will fix stuff.
BTW: For an experiment, I've been playing in ASCII for the last few days and have just returned to my graphics- I must admit that even with the messed up text, the graphic version is still much more readable for me.
But that's cool you're putting out another version. I haven't up to date with your stuff (just been transferring the graphics over the last few DF updates), you putting in any new graphics or just syncing up with the lastest df version?
Isn't cooking with alcohol incredibly efficient, though? You'd just need to occasionally keep an eye on your stockpiles to make sure you're producing more than you use for cooking.
Here we have the moat with a bridge.
One z-level down, you can see where it goes into the mountain a bit before going even further down. Also, there is a side passage that can be opened for emergency drainage, and another that leads to a farming area for irrigation.
Now it briefly travels under my fortress to avoid various important rooms.
It then rises back up and goes around the front of the fort...
...creating the second, main moat that protects my front entrance and depot.
Back underground, the channel dips again to avoid my stockpiles.
And finally goes up and out.
But not before passing under some hatches to allow for water and fish.
Not shown here is my latest change, which is to turn the exit into a side drain and channel it north into a chasm I have up there.
I expect that once I actually test it will end up going horribly wrong somehow.
I'll take some pics of my awesome condo whose entire design and layout was made to showcase the Artifact Granite Door that acts as it's one and only door.
Also, I think I have like two Artifact floor grates now that I have no clue what to do with.
Two questions:
1) You said the water rises back up, I don't see any pumps... am I blind? I never really use them except for in the gym so maybe I'm overlooking.
2) What happens to your defenses when the water freezes?
If his water freezes he can just channel it out. A 1-tile wide empty moat is as effective as a massive magma lake.
The big benefit to using alcohol to cook is it seems to prevent the "tired of eating the same food" thought that dwarves get, as long as the cooking is done with different types of alcohol.. which causes it to be regarded as a "different" food.
The "better" solution is to set up the moat so it's 1 z-level below the surface level. So even if it does freeze, it still functions as intended.
I'm pretty sure creatures can climb out of 7/7 water that's on the same z-level as well, so if a goblin were to fall in, there's a chance he could climb out (assuming he doesn't drown first).
What if winter hits and the freeze comes during a siege? ^^
I prefer a dry moat for this reason, but the water looks cool :P
Indoor moats maybe?
1. Water has pressure in DF, so it will come back up to the level of the river (aka the source) wherever it can, including after going down any height. (disclaimer: you have to have enough water to fill the u-bend for it to come out the other side)
2. That would depend on his climate. In a scorching or hot climate, you might have the opposite situation of the water evaporating too fast, which isn't too much of a problem in itself though, just kinda ugly. However if it does freeze, the moat would be effectively useless. To solve this problem, see: magma moat. 8-)
Edit: Beat like a redheaded stepchild.
Another problem with a freezing moat is if it does freeze and then stuff gets piled on top of it, it'll all be washed away/inaccessible when it melts.
Edito de dos: When the water melts, the stuff on top of it that then falls in the water includes any unlucky/dumb dorfs.
2) My main problem that I may have is actually that the moats as they are now are a z-level below the river, so I put 50/50 odds that, instead of continuing to flow through the tunnels, the water will decide to start overflowing my moats and flooding the outside of my fortress. If this happens I'm going to have to build some walls to raise the moats up even with the river.
Plenty of new stuff- a completely new dwarven and goblin military for example.
You can exploit the "physics" in the game by resetting the source level of the water with pumps.
Basically your end result should be you let the river water fill a pit that is at least 1 z-level below where you want the surface of the water to be. Then you hook a pump into this pit so the exit point of the pump is on the same z-level of your moat (remember: pumps pull water from 1 z-level below, and eject it on the same level as the pump).
Installing this system is a lot harder than describing it, so expect some disasters before you get it right. Always save before you turn on the water so you can scum if you have to.
If you haven't seen frozen water during winter, you're probably fine.
As to the moat being lower than the river, as long as the water has somewhere to flow to, it shouldn't go any higher than it needs to. DF has a pretty accurate water simulation, and it should flow sideways before going up.
Dwarves never select things at random. Ever. There is a method to the madness in every case. When it comes to selecting weapons and armor they select the closest* item that matches their settings when they decide to do the "pickup equipment" job. If you want a dwarf to have a certain thing unequip him entirely and once he is done dropping stuff forbid all the items you don't want him to use.
If I wanted my army to practice with silver swords, for example, I would manufacture silver swords only until I was sure all guards were equipped with one each. Then when they reach a sufficiently high level I would just go into the stockpiles screen and forbid all silver swords, making the guards run off to fetch whatever new swords I have made for them.
Here is a picture of my main living quarters. To the north-west are the cheap, mass production basic units, what one might call dwarven mobile homes except not really mobile at all. To the east of that and south is the nicer full three room set that I made for my expedition leader. However, it seems that when he became a Mayor this was no longer good enough for him. They are now the residence of my Captain of the Guard. North of them is my Mayor's new quarters, a special design made to showcase the awesomeness of my Artifact Granite Door. You can also see my burial chamber and lower refuse heap.
PS: My Mayor is mandating the production of chain mail, but I have nothing to make it out of. What can I do?