Dwarf Fortress: Very Ambitious Roguelike

[rezaf]

I thought that issue had long been fixed?
I remember in some version I played years ago, "active" training didn't work at all, you had to play around with the settings so the dwarves would do individual combat drills - is that still the case?

Cause I consulted the wiki and it said you'd best reduce the minimum training (I set it to five) and it should work. I didn't mix weapon types, btw.
I get the organizing/waiting for lesson stuff, and I've often actually see the dwarves train (as in standing around in the training room and attending instead of waiting for status), but of course there's still a lot of downtime.
Duking it out with the goblins and forgotten beasts didn't improve anyones combat skill either, though.
I don't mind slow progress, but at this glacial pace, every single dwarf in the fort would be legendary without these dudes ever leaving their initial skill levels.

About needing someone good to train the others ... where should I get such dwarf? If training doesn't make him good and actually beating a FB doesn't make him good, what is he supposed to do?

Right now I'm at least very tempted to try making a danger room to at least see how it goes, and if that fails, I think I'm done with DF again.
There's just so many systems that work bad or very bad, the years go by and I see little to no improvement.

I'll just depict toady standing around in the coding workshop he claimed babbling about needing something to finish up this artifact, but I fail to understand what he needs, so I just wall him in in case he decides to go berserk at some point. ;)
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rezaf

[Calistas]

No, you don't need to reduce the minimum training thingumy. Yes, it will give dwarves breaks, but it doesn't really help much. If you want to give a squad a break, give them a break when they start to seem unhappy by inactivating them.

Instead, I would recommend dissolving all squads and creating squads of 2 dwarves. They will then tend to spend their time sparing, rather than running lessons (unless you put a dwarf with superior skills in with a rookie - so try and keep dwarves roughly matched in skill. Dwarf Therapist can help a lot, especially the splintz (? I forget?) version which I think has had some military tasking capabilities added. (Oh look, I found it after all http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index...117#msg3397117 )

I have quite enjoyed danger rooms. Don't think they are a perfect panacea - you need to keep women out of your military (babies can't dodge even training spears, who would have thoughts?) and pets can quickly be turned to paste if let in. You also want to set up a repeated (a loop of track, pressure plate and a mine cart and a roller work brilliantly). Also, while you will have skilled dwarves they can still be easily machine-gunned down by elite marksgoblins. And hey, it's kinda fun to send your dwarves in rather than sitting back and leaving the traps to do their work. Especially when you know you can train some up again relatively easily.

[Sarkus]

So I've been trying to relearn the game after a long layoff using the Lazy Newb pack and watching the FogeyGamer videos. But I'm confused about something.

According to my bookkeeper I have a bunch (over 100) plump helmet spawn. But my farmers keep saying they don't have any seeds. And my one food stockpile doesn't show them up anywhere either. I started with a bunch and grew them fine the first few seasons but at some point this "no seeds" thing started popping up.

So where are they? Is this some sort of container issue where I have them but not the proper container because according to the wiki seeds have to be in bags.

Very confused.

[Intangir]

Are the seeds listed as an item the chef can cook? If you don't disallow him from cooking with the seeds, they can cook away your stock of seeds.

[Sarkus]

Are the seeds listed as an item the chef can cook? If you don't disallow him from cooking with the seeds, they can cook away your stock of seeds.

No, I checked that. The cook can't use them. Either way, though, I have a bunch of them somewhere. I just don't know why they aren't accessible to the farmers.

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong as far as retrieving seeds after plump helmets are eaten raw? Or is that automatic?

[Intangir]

Huh, dunno, and it's been a long while since I played DF (and a lot of versions ago, I presume). I used to make a little storage closet by my farms just for seeds, and I'd turn off storing seeds everywhere else so they'd only go there. Kind of a pain, but it worked.

[Calistas]

I probably explain this in my book! Haha.

Anyway, make a stockpile just for seeds next to your farms and see what happens. Also, have you specifically told each farm to plant pump helms, clicked the letter for each season and set it?

[rezaf]

If he hadn't issued the farm(s) to run on Plump Helmets, he wouldn't get the out-of-seeds message, would he?
FWIW, I've noticed the same issue - I have like 500 Plump Helmet spawns stocked and get the out-of-seeds thing all the time.
Since the farms are running nonetheless (albeit never "full") and food is the least of my concerns, I mostly just ignore it, but it's there.

Thanks for the military tips Calistas.
With all you wrote, wouldn't you agree, though, that the military stuff is at least borderline broken? I mean, having to make 2-men squads or a danger room (a silly thing to begin with, that shouldn't work at all imo) to get your men have ANY progress whatsoever ... that's a pretty sad state of affairs.
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rezaf

[Sarkus]

I tried the stockpile thing and they don't show up there either.

[Calistas]

If he hadn't issued the farm(s) to run on Plump Helmets, he wouldn't get the out-of-seeds message, would he?

Depends on what he ordered planted. He might have put it on the wrong plant.

Thanks for the military tips Calistas. With all you wrote, wouldn't you agree, though, that the military stuff is at least borderline broken? I mean, having to make 2-men squads or a danger room (a silly thing to begin with, that shouldn't work at all imo) to get your men have ANY progress whatsoever ... that's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Oh, yes, the training/military system right now is kinda broke. Training is way too slow. You can speed it up by issuing wooden weapons and telling troops to beat on naked goblins. Takes them quite a while to die and your blokes get good experience. Still, it's fiddly and slow.

[Wolff]

So I've started a new fort...soundsense really adds a lot to the game - it has added a lot of sounds since I last played. Started training 5 sword dwarves with training swords and wooden shields we will see how that goes.

[Calistas]

You can set them right into real gear (if you have the metals) without risk - they no longer kill each other when sparring.

[Wolff]

Ah very nice thank you. Also seed job cancelation spam is caused by the fact dwarves now bring the container to the item and then replace the container in the stockpile. While the container is wanderlusting the items in it cannot be found by dwarfs causing job cancellations.

[John Many Jars]

You can set them right into real gear (if you have the metals) without risk - they no longer kill each other when sparring.

WHAT

THAT'S NOT DWARF FORTRESS!

[rezaf]

Ah very nice thank you. Also seed job cancelation spam is caused by the fact dwarves now bring the container to the item and then replace the container in the stockpile. While the container is wanderlusting the items in it cannot be found by dwarfs causing job cancellations.

While being another pretty lame semi-bug, this explanation makes sense - thank's for the head's up on this Wolff.
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rezaf

[Wolff]

The solution I found was to just ignore it - or alternately to make one strip of your seeds pile (or whatever pile, so actually two stockpiles side by side) in the strip forbid containers of any kind - set a flow from the container stockpile into the non-container stockpile.

[Sarkus]

I created a new fortress and am seeing the seed thing again. Seems stupid to me that they can't share a huge barrell of seeds or whatever the issue is. I keep getting the same message even though I have more plump spawn seeds then anything else. Only happens with plump spawn as well, I've noticed.

[Arbit]

Oh, yes, the training/military system right now is kinda broke. Training is way too slow. You can speed it up by issuing wooden weapons and telling troops to beat on naked goblins. Takes them quite a while to die and your blokes get good experience. Still, it's fiddly and slow.

I really wish he would fix this. I've tried several times to get a working military going and it has ended up with a small party of six or so goblins running roughshod over my 15+ dwarf craptastic military every time. I can work around crazy interfaces but restarting over and over because I can't get them to do anything besides give each other dodging lessons just pisses me off.

[Morberis]

How do you uh undress the goblins so you can beat on them.

[Wolff]

Yeah I think I am done for a bit again. Couple things that annoy me:

Stockpile hauling interruptus: once my fort booms getting this message all the time and it is impacting my ability to feed my fort etc.

Military what an embarrassing mess. Training for 6 seasons hardly improved their skills.

Finding a site with magma not 50z levels below the surface that isn't a map with huge extreme cliffs.

[rezaf]

That last point is a good one Wolff.
Another reason I got very tired of my game, besides the military issues, was the fact that I had 75 levels downwards to reach magma and no coal.
Having to rely on burning trees basically prevents any sort of automated metal industry.
Why can't you just import coal? I tried to "order" some, but all I got was a couple of (literally a couple, as in two) bitumenous coal blocks, which appearently you cannot use for smelting.
A simpler solution still would be to just list coal seperately when embarking (there's probably third-party tools to do this), but no such luck.

I played three sites for a reasonable amount of time, one had basically only coal, one had no coal at all and one had loads of coal and loads of gold.
Unfortunately, the latter ended prematurely due to a massive zombie siege (assault would be a better word) maybe three years in, before my defenses were ready anyway.
It didn't help at all that I had JUST gold, and you can't make armor or weapons in this game from gold...
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rezaf

[Sarkus]

I have a pretty decent fortress going but I cannot figure out how to train wardogs. The wiki says something about creating an animal training activity zone but I don't see that anywhere in the menu.

Otherwise things aren't going too bad. I have 85 dwarfs, a decent gem encrusting industry going, and plenty of plant food production going on. Only meat needs to be imported since I haven't figured that out.

[rezaf]

Animal training is pretty simple, the zone is on the same menu other zones such as the pasture or the garbage dump are on (hotkey is i, if I remember correctly). Then you pick the animal from the status/animals window.
I was only able to do it with dogs because I never got access to another war-trainable animal, but that's how it works.
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rezaf

[Jajusha]

That last point is a good one Wolff.
Another reason I got very tired of my game, besides the military issues, was the fact that I had 75 levels downwards to reach magma and no coal.
Having to rely on burning trees basically prevents any sort of automated metal industry.
Why can't you just import coal? I tried to "order" some, but all I got was a couple of (literally a couple, as in two) bitumenous coal blocks, which appearently you cannot use for smelting.
A simpler solution still would be to just list coal seperately when embarking (there's probably third-party tools to do this), but no such luck.

I played three sites for a reasonable amount of time, one had basically only coal, one had no coal at all and one had loads of coal and loads of gold.
Unfortunately, the latter ended prematurely due to a massive zombie siege (assault would be a better word) maybe three years in, before my defenses were ready anyway.
It didn't help at all that I had JUST gold, and you can't make armor or weapons in this game from gold...
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rezaf

You do know the orders menu right?
Order your dwarfs to burn 10 bars of coal (from wood)
Order your dwarfs to smelt 5 bars of [whatever metal]
Order your dwarfs to smelt 5 helmets.

Increase those numbers by 10 if you wish. But anyway, its a simple process, you just order those actions in less then 30 seconds and watch the dwarfs carry them out, no need for rock coal.

[rezaf]

Actually, I never used this menu, but even so, the problem remains the same.
Thing is, wood is a scarce resource, and I often need it for the B stuff (barrels, beds, bins), so I have to keep giving manual wood-burning orders whenever I think I have enough wood lying around. That usually works, but is pretty much a chore.
And god forbid I'm under siege or for some reason no caravans arrive and/or I'm in an area with few trees.
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rezaf

[Calistas]

Danger rooms. Seriously, it's actually kinda fun and your military will not up omg wtf pwn bbq good. They will end up pretty sweet, and fun, but still quite killable.

As for magma, I edit the world gen files and create a setting which has.. like... 30 volcanoes per world and then it is relatively easy to find surface magma =)

[Wolff]

I think my issue is that I never hit that "zen" state of dwarves management anymore. I am very comfortable with the interface but the underlying mechanics are just busted now. Instead of making high level decisions all the fun is sucked away by having to work around bugs or weird gameplay. Now instead of deciding to have a military - picking my dwarves and squads and having them develop - I need to make a bunch of squads of twos, keep an eye on their skill levels - build danger rooms for each etc. it is becoming an exercise in frustration. Add in the fact that finding a decent site is a multi hour exercise and I find myself just angry at the end of my game session.

[Wolff]

I will prob give it another go tonight ...hopefully it clicks again.

[Sarkus]

Animal training is pretty simple, the zone is on the same menu other zones such as the pasture or the garbage dump are on (hotkey is i, if I remember correctly). Then you pick the animal from the status/animals window.
I was only able to do it with dogs because I never got access to another war-trainable animal, but that's how it works.
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rezaf

I'm still not seeing it. Maybe I'm dense. If I hit the "i" key (zones) I don't see how you create any kind of zone there. Are you talking about the stockpile creation menu? Or the designations menu? I guess I need a walkthrough.

[rezaf]

Assuming you're playing with the default keys (iirc Lazy Newb for example changes some keys around):

You press i to enter the zones menu.
You navigate the cursor to where you want to place the zone (I tend to use a strip of land outside my main gate for animal training, but it probably can be anywhere, including indoors).
You press enter to start placing the zone.
You navigate the cursor to another point, for example 5 tiles down and 10 tiles right. (If you're in the right mode, the tile where you started should be blinking.)
You press enter again and the zone will be placed.
Then you just highlight the zone by placing the cursor anywhere on it and press 't' to use this zone for animal training.

Done.

Did that help?
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rezaf