Dwarf Fortress

[Solmyr]

Urist Jones and the Temple of Doom.

[Monoriu]

After reading this thread I downloaded it. 

First impression.  The graphics are intolerable.  Sorry.  I can live with sub-standard graphics, but these simply hurt the eyes.  I downloaded the lazynewbie pack and the problem is now solved. 

Second problem.  Can't dig.  At all.  CTurns out that I can't dig where there are trees and grass.  Have to dig in those dark places. 

I now have a few minor operations going on.  I have carpenter, still, farm, dormitory, dining hall, stockpiles, stairs.  Just figured out how to get stone (have to dig DOWN). 

Biggest problem right now is I have a pasture to contain all the animals.  I want to assign the two dogs to the entrance to watch out for thieves, but I can't.  There is no way to assign different animals to different pastures.  They all must contain the same instructions, or at least it seems so to me. 

My questions are -

Any solution for the pasture problem?  Is there any way to assign dogs to one pasture and everything else to another?

How wide should the corridors be?  1, 2, or 3 tiles wide?

Any tips for a newbie?

What should I do next?

Vermin.  I deal with the problem by releasing the cats from the pasture when I see vermin.  I don't want the cats to become pets.  Is there a better way to deal with vermin?

[MadImmortalMan]

I let cats go free. Not much vermin problems then. Just watch you get the kittens. The dogs follow their assigned master dwarf. You can assign dogs to pastures too (i+shift-N) but they are less likely to respond.

I put all the dogs to the pasture where the kennel is. That way, I can assign them to hunting or war dog duty whenever they are trained---they have to be in the pasture where the kennel is to train them. Dogs are very good for the beginning of he game when all the enemies are likely beaten by dogs, and also the mid game when all the enemies are likely distracted by dogs.

Assign the dog pasture in the same area as the kennel--make it surround it.

[Alexandru H.]

Just create a small pasture at the door of your fort and N your dogs there. Yes, I know that when you use that instruction, you get the list of all your animals. Don't worry, just select the dogs you want in that pasture and it will be fine.

I prefer 3-tile corridors because when you'll reach 100 dwarves (that's my upper limit, more dwarves are a pain in the ass due to system performance), you're gonna need the space.

My tips:

a) turn off invaders from the LNP settings: military basics should be left last, since they're a bit difficult to set up. Just concentrate for now on learning the basics.
b) build farms. Not too many, since you'll be overwhelmed by plants... My personal favorite is to channel some areas, build a glass roof and farm in the first level at once underground and ground plants. But that's a bit too advanced. Just stick with good old cave wheat.
c) trading is very important at the beginning. Stonecrafting is your friend by turning that useless stone into nice crafts. If you have plenty of wood, don't forget to order some wooden bins... great for keeping stocks.
d) at the beginning, make some beds and create a large dormitory. It's gonna be useful until you begin clearing their individual rooms. Likewise with the meeting hall: make some tables/chairs.
e) be careful with stairs. Their physics is a bit difficult: if you want a simple stairway to the lower level, you make a "downstairs" and then a "upstairs"... if you want to make a longer multi-level stairway, you'll use between the downstairs and upstairs the up/down stairway.
f) dogs at entrance should be used with traps. Especially cages. Create some of them and put them there.

[sbr]

After reading this thread I downloaded it. 

First impression.  The graphics are intolerable.  Sorry.  I can live with sub-standard graphics, but these simply hurt the eyes.  I downloaded the lazynewbie pack and the problem is now solved. 

Second problem.  Can't dig.  At all.  CTurns out that I can't dig where there are trees and grass.  Have to dig in those dark places. 

I now have a few minor operations going on.  I have carpenter, still, farm, dormitory, dining hall, stockpiles, stairs.  Just figured out how to get stone (have to dig DOWN). 

Biggest problem right now is I have a pasture to contain all the animals.  I want to assign the two dogs to the entrance to watch out for thieves, but I can't.  There is no way to assign different animals to different pastures.  They all must contain the same instructions, or at least it seems so to me. 

My questions are -

Any solution for the pasture problem?  Is there any way to assign dogs to one pasture and everything else to another?

How wide should the corridors be?  1, 2, or 3 tiles wide?

Any tips for a newbie?

What should I do next?

Vermin.  I deal with the problem by releasing the cats from the pasture when I see vermin.  I don't want the cats to become pets.  Is there a better way to deal with vermin?

I haven't played much in the last two versions so I don't know anything about pastures yet, so sorry.

There is nothing that will slow your dwarfs down as much as too crapped quarters.  Two dwarfs can occupy the same tile but they slow down drastically when they do.  The explanation I heard was that one dwarf filled one tile, in order for another dwarf to pass they had to stop and crawl and climb over top of each other to get passed.  I usually dig my main public corridors at 7 tiles wide, or at least allow space for them to be expanded to 7 tiles in the future.  In the old 2D version of the game any ceiling tile that was more than  7 tiles from a support would cave in.  Cave-ins were nerfed when the game went "3D" but old habits die hard and I still stay at 7.  When I get to less busy hallways I will reduce down to 5, or maybe as low as 3 in a dormitory wing were the only traffic is dwarfs going to and coming from their bedrooms, but 3 is as small as I would ever go and it feels very cramped to me.

Cats can be a major problem to your FPS, at least they were previously, and they breed like crazy.  I don't know how much was changed with the update that created pastures, and I don't know if cats need to eat so my old way of dealing with cats may be outdated, but I am going to explain anyway.

The term catsplosion is one of a DF players' biggest fears.  Most animals get adopted by dwarfs, cats adopt an owner themselves and once a pet has an owner you can't do anything to that animal.  As soon as I saw the message about kittens being born I immediately ssigned the kittens to be put into a cage.  In previous versions caged animals didn't need food and didn't breed and didn't adopt owners.  Also cages could hold an infinite number of animals in one cage.  Once there were a dozen or so cats in a cage and the butcher and leather industries were rolling there were kitten leather mittens for everyone.  Sorry, CdM.

[sbr]

Why can't I train my dogs into war dogs?  I have dogs, they are in a training activity zone and I have a dorf with Animal Trainer turned on.

[MadImmortalMan]

Why can't I train my dogs into war dogs?  I have dogs, they are in a training activity zone and I have a dorf with Animal Trainer turned on.

Put the kennel inside the same zone. I make a pasture with the kennel in the middle of it and assign the dogs to it and that works.

[Alexandru H.]

My first two settings before any game:

a) Delete the "can adopt owner" tag from cats
b) Put the "acceptable tag" on "can butcher and eat sentient creatures"

While I lose some cat meat, I can make up with nice flavored elf or goblin roasts...

[Solmyr]

Why can't I train my dogs into war dogs?  I have dogs, they are in a training activity zone and I have a dorf with Animal Trainer turned on.

Are they already owned/assigned? You can only train unassigned animals.

[sbr]

Why can't I train my dogs into war dogs?  I have dogs, they are in a training activity zone and I have a dorf with Animal Trainer turned on.

Are they already owned/assigned? You can only train unassigned animals.

I don't believe so but I will check.  I think it is the kennel inside the training zone thing, but thanks.

[sbr]

You have to go to the 'z' screen, under the Animals tab and set each dog to be trainable. 

[Monoriu]

Further newbie questions -

1. What is the difference among wall, fortification and grate? 

2. I have yet to find *any* metal.  Is there anything in particular that I should do?

3. I have set up a dining hall and my dwarves seem to eat there.  But they still go to the food storage for drinks and there is a flashing arrow pointing downward on the dwarves, perhaps indicating that they are unhappy.  Is this normal?

4. Any downside to leaving stones lying around everywhere?  There are too many of them and I don't want to dig a gigantic storage room just for stones. 

[Solmyr]

1. A wall is a wall. A fortification is a wall that crossbows can shoot through. A grate lets liquids/gases and such through.

2. Dig around in the stone. You should find some ores that you can smelt into various metals, unless you somehow embarked on a crazy location with no metal.

3. What color is the flashing arrow? Different colors mean different things. And yeah, dwarves will drink directly from the barrels in the storage.

4. Not really, except for aesthetic reasons.

[Monoriu]

2. In my 3 games so far I've yet to find any metal.  I did find tons and tons of cobaltite.  Some gems.

[Solmyr]

You've never found any of these?

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Ore