Dwarf Fortress

[sbr]

I have a lot more micromanagement problems when the fort is new and small, rather than when it gets larger.

When the fort is brand new and there are only 7 dwarves there is way too much to be done and not nearly enough hands to get it done.  I am constantly going to each dwarf and turning labor preferences on and off to make sure things get done in a timely manner.  I am also quite anal about dwarves specializing in jobs and not being jack-of-all-trades.  I don't want my carpenter touching anything stone, it is a waste of time.  I want my mason getting that experience so he can hit Legendary sooner.  It does lead to more idle dwarves than I would like but it benefits the fort in the long run.

Once you hit 20-30 dwarves you can assign each one a different job and have most of the important ones covered.  Once it is bigger than that things really smooth out and I don't do much more than fiddle with each immigrant's labor preferences to make sure he/she is going to do what I want.  At that point the fort manager and repeat task functions make it a the production part of the game something I watch, rather than play.

The in-game fort manager's main problem is that you can't assign a specific dwarf or workshop to make a specific item.  That can be a problem when you are needing your Legendary Mason to make Masterpiece furniture for the incoming Nobles but the ability to assign specific dwarves to specific workshops usually fixes that, though there is some micro there.  At that point I am looking for things to do though so I don't really mind it.

All of the above is based on the '07 version of the game, it is the last one I spent any real time with.  Things may have changed a bit but it doesn't seem like any of the above was affected too much.

[sbr]

I'm trying to figure out military squad scheduling and am having trouble.  I have read the wiki article a couple of times but something is just not clicking.

Can I preset a squad's alert level in a future month? 

Granite:  I want squad 1 to train,squad 2 to be patrolling the perimeter and squad 3 to be inactive.
Slate:  I want squad 1 to be patrolling the perimeter, squad 2 to be inactive, and squad 3 to train.
Felsite:  I want squad 1 to be inactive, squad 2 to train and squad 3 to patrol.

If so how?  I was under the impression from somewhere that I could do that.  Or do I need to change each alert level each month?

[MadImmortalMan]

Yeah, on the schedule you can set each month for each squad individually. Then it would look like this:

The Crystalline Hides

train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol
inactive

The Walled Treasures

inactive
train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol
inactive
train
patrol


Etc.

Copy/paste the orders across the squads and stagger them with an offset of one. Leave all the squads on active-train status--they will still stand down in their inactive months. 

[sbr]

Ok that helps.  Also I am an idiot and finally just realized there is no 'inactive' order.  No scheduled order=inactive. 

Also how important is it that dwarfs have some time off?

[Solmyr]

They'll take their time off on their own (whether you want it or not, possibly in the middle of a goblin invasion). It shows as "On Break". You don't need to idle them yourself otherwise.

[sbr]

The migrant wave in Mid-Spring of the second year of my fort took my population from 15 dorfs to 39, and counting. 

[HisMajestyBOB]

I used to play this a lot, but it's been so long now that I'll have to relearn everything. It's kind of daunting.

[Jaron]

I used to play this a lot, but it's been so long now that I'll have to relearn everything. It's kind of daunting.

Same here.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I started a new game using the Lazy Newb.  The Ravenlurk the Black-Lace Aunts of Autumn at Darkcastle.

[Jaron]

I started a new game using the Lazy Newb.  The Ravenlurk the Black-Lace Aunts of Autumn at Darkcastle.

[Alexandru H.]

Some moody fellow just took my platinum bar and single diamond and turned it into a pine cup. Yeah, it's expensive but it's a fucking wooden trinket... 

Mental note: modding is fun and should be continued by uniting all types of fat/tallow/wood/meat into single categories... spent 10 minutes creating a deposit for tallow only,,,

[sbr]

Pondering dwarven abortion.   

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108361.msg3236157#msg3236157

Is there any way to passively abort pregnancies in a fort with traps or something? Spike traps would probably work, but there's always the risk of spontaneous skull crushing... perhaps a fall down a stairwell, induced by a flood of water?

[MadImmortalMan]

Heh. Training spear traps kill babies just fine but never adults. 

*This message brought to you by Planned Dwarvenhood.

[Darth Wagtaros]

How the fuckity fuck do I assign a dwarf to do a particular job?

[garbon]

How the fuckity fuck do I assign a dwarf to do a particular job?

You can only set labor preferences...which if a dwarf has only wood cutting set (for example) then they'll be likely to go chop wood when they have downtime.