Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

v0.34 Talk:Monarch

2013-07-19T22:56:10Z

Dudemcman: /* King is dead */

The demand for duke isn't correct, I have a queen, but still only have a countess. No dukes.

This seems to imply that the "queen consort" or "king consort" only come with the monarch. However I just received a "queen consort" with my first wave of immigrants.

Running 34.07 the king came dressed as a peasant after I discovered adamantine.

Confirming the above, I was only a barony and the king just arrived. I actually haven't even gone down to the first cavern yet, let alone discovered adamantine. The king is wearing standard clothing (no quality). He is also a blatant vampire... "Rigoth Alathber, king vampire" with the Ñ symbol and all. 
I'm also not so sure about the road requirement. I only have 4 3x10 and 1 4x9 Claystone Block Paved Roads... That is 42 blocks, each worth 5 for a total material value of 210.
This is version 34.11 btw.
--[[User:Takitaktak|Takitaktak]] 10:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

:Bridges also count. And you can't just count the materials; roads and bridges have quality, so the skill levels of both the architect and builder increase the constructions' values. 'n' -> 'c' shows you the road value with all factors taken into account, so use that as a guide if you're trying to avoid getting prematurely kinged [[User:Urist McDorf|Urist McDorf]] 06:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Confirming even more the above as a vampire king arrived in my fortress where i didn't even have a barony neither did i have roads, BUT i did offer a real LOT of stuff to the dwarven caravan (185777)

34.11 here. County, no roads at all. Offered about 10-11K. King arrived and is a blatant vampire. [[User:Great Cthulhu|Great Cthulhu]] 22:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

:Did you get any special announcement about the King's arrival (i.e. a fullscreen message, just like the arrival of a siege), or did he just show up as part of a migrant wave? --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 23:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

::Sorry, only just saw your message. I think there was an announcement, but I'm not sure. I am sure that he arrived with a retinue of legendaries, though. [[User:Great Cthulhu|Great Cthulhu]] 22:01, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The {{k|n}}-{{k|c}} option appears for me as a city. --[[User:Lethosor|Lethosor]] 22:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
:Clarification: I have 193 dwarves and recently hit 1159975{{db}} created wealth. Maybe over 1 million {{db}} is required? --[[User:Lethosor|Lethosor]] 22:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Monarch requirements can vary somewhat ==

It's been mentioned [[v0.31_Talk:Monarch#Wrong_numbers_in_value_requirements|before]] that the requirements (architecture and offerings, but not roads as of, what, v34.01?) can vary somewhat. At present I have a king-ready (>140 dwarfizens) fort, and my requirements are architecture 10K (current 34K) and offerings 7500 (current 0). Thinking of replacing the numbers with just "varies", but if 15K and 5K are what most people see, it's still useful information. Perhaps add a "values can vary" and/or a "see notes" in the side bar with an explanation in the text. [[User:Urist McDorf|Urist McDorf]] 10:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
:Back in version 0.23.130.23a, the logic was "10000☼ architecture, 5000☼ roads, and 5000☼ offerings, with one of the 3 requirements boosted by 50%", so you could end up with 15000/5000/5000, 10000/7500/5000, or 10000/5000/7500. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 11:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

== King is dead ==
I just lost my king to an ambush. Does it mean that I will get replacement or I will not have king anymore?

Does anyone know the answer to this question? --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] ([[User talk:Dudemcman|talk]]) 22:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

== Monarch's race ==

Vampires? Elves? Huh. My queen just arrived. And... she seems to be an animal :-D She can be assigned to a pasture or put in a cage. Job status on {{k|u}} screen is "Tame". I can't even assign a room to her! 442 years old too. Amazing. Creature from myths, I guess.

On the positive side she seems to be rather... non-demanding. Or at least there are no preferences listed in details and she's always "quite content", even without her Royal rooms :) --[[User:Elfy|Elfy]] ([[User talk:Elfy|talk]]) 11:18, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

v0.34 Talk:Cabinet

2012-12-09T18:15:13Z

Dudemcman: Created page with "== Community Cabinets? == Is there any way to make publicly available cabinets? I don't wanna make every one there own room because vampires :P --~~~~"

== Community Cabinets? ==
Is there any way to make publicly available cabinets? I don't wanna make every one there own room because vampires :P --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 18:15, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Egg

2011-03-11T04:15:58Z

Dudemcman: Created page with 'Can they be eaten raw? --~~~~'

Can they be eaten raw? --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 04:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Miner

2010-12-31T21:56:55Z

Dudemcman: /* Ghost Miner? */

My miners always seem to pick the next mined block by random. I have normaly 8 rooms to clear, 4 rooms are half mined, one room is ready, and the other rooms have only 1 or 2 walls removed.--[[User:Niggy|Niggy]] 22:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Has anybody actually verified that the second paragraph still applies to 0.31.0x? Consensus from IRC seems to be that Legendary miner skill does NOT result in leaving stone 100% of the time any more, and my observation so far has been that miners with only Proficient skill leave stone most of the time too. In fact I'm not confident that there's any correlation at all any more. [[User:Dholmes|Dholmes]] 01:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

== Ghost Miner? ==

I had a miner die while having one of the flashing to-be-mined blockes, and its still there? and i dont think my other miner will mine it in his stead, any suggestions? --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 21:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

== 'Top Down' sentence ==

quoting the page, here..

"They seem to mine top levels over lower ones.

Source: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Miner#ixzz0vy12I2Vj"

i've actually seen nothing but the opposite in 31.12 - my dwarves mine from the bottom up, though they gotop-left on down as the article states. furthermore, the article also says something about mining dwarves perferring to work from up to down, whereas i've noticed no real preference, or if anything a slight preference to going left-to-right.

to make a long story short, i call shenanigans. if need be, i can make a movie via the ingame ; thingy. like i said, i'm running 31.12, though i noticed the behavior back in .08. in .08 i was running the game unmodded, this version i primarily use the MikeMayday Tileset. (note, i upgraded from .08 to .12, so i dont know about 9-11.)

v0.31 Talk:Elf

2010-12-10T03:14:17Z

Dudemcman: /* Counter offer leather */

Confirm that trading leather is a no no? [[User:Cpad|Cpad]] 02:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

:see update. leather is fine in all forms. --[[User:Birthright|Birthright]] 16:53, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Needs game data

Creatures that you purchase from them do not appear to breed, even if you have enough of both genders chained or caged in close proximity. Perhaps the elves practice spay/neuter policies with the creatures they trade? [[User:Volouscheur|Volouscheur]] 21:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
:That's nothing to do with Elves, it's just that caged animals don't breed. Not sure about chained ones. Incidentally, proximity has nothing to do with breeding at present - everything seems to reproduce through spores :) [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 12:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
::Chained cows, horses, dogs, etc. breed when chained (gotta be via spores), so I would expect more exotic animals would do the same. --[[User:MisterB777|MisterB777]] 22:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

==Removed text==

Removed this section as it's not encyclopaedic (or very well-written):

<quote>They are hypocritical, cowardly (Choosing ranged weapons over axes), and "ye best keep your wits about ye" when they are on your map. To sum things up they are not Dwarves... or even Humans (Or even close to Humans), and should therefore be treated as enemies.</quote>

It might be worth including something to the effect of "many players refer to the Elves as 'treehugging hippies' and the like".
[[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 12:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

:I think that that is a good sport of comedy, and should be put back (with a "D for Dwarf" banner above it). --[[User:Arkenstone|Arkenstone]] 21:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

==Demands==

Can anyone verify that Elves still demand you limit deforestation in 0.31? [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 12:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
:I got a screenshot from 0.31.12 that shows that they do, but I'm on a new laptop and forgot my password, working on fixing it so I can upload it (my username's Arkenstone, you see I posted below) --[[Special:Contributions/67.167.194.192|67.167.194.192]] 04:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
:Not only do they demand a limit to your deforestation, but they seem to know when you cut down mushrooms in the caverns down deep too. [[User:Nadal|Nadal]] 7:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
::Elves still set tree limits, and count the trees you cut, not just what's in your stockpile when they show up. There is a counter on the civ screen, mine currently reads -405/105, because I've cut down 4 times as many trees as I agreed to. Not sure how mad they're gonna be about all the new charcoal. --[[User:Jmz|Jmz]] 01:28, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

And do the still refuse meat? --[[User:Arkenstone|Arkenstone]] 21:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
:I just tested it, as I've gotten into the habit of checking pages and their talk pages when I'm wondering about something currently going on in my fort. Elves in this version do indeed accept meat, as well as fish, bone and other refuse derivatives, leather, and totems. As usual, you still have to be careful of trying to trade them the barrel the meat is contained in. I'm going to remove the verify tags regarding this from the page, if anybody wants proof in screencap form I'll gladly provide it. --[[User:Eurytus|Eurytus]] 20:53, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
::You should probably report that on the bug tracker if it isn't there already - most of those materials have [IMPLIES_ANIMAL_KILL], so elves should be utterly mortified by any attempts to trade them. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 21:21, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
:::I reported it, although I'm not sure if it's a bug or if Toady just made it so that Elves only reject wood-related items now. --[[User:Eurytus|Eurytus]] 21:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

==Cutting corners (and trees) with the elves?==

The first year the elves told me to limit my tree-killing, I wasn't paying attention... and went beyond it by a few. They didn't go to war with me, and the next year I kissed up to them, cutting very few trees. Does cutting more trees after breaking tree-related promises continue to piss off elves? Also, how exactly does the piss-mechanic work? Does behaving well one year allow you to get away with a bit more the next? How about trading with high trader profits? Also, I'd love to just cut down every single tree in my fortress, start a war, apologize, and start a new peace, later restarting the cycle when my stockpiles run low. Can one end wars like this in the current DF and regain trade partners? --[[User:Peglegpenguin|Peglegpenguin]] 02:27, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

== Counter offer leather ==

i just had some elves counter offer in trade for some leather quivers. i got screwed over, but they didnt care about the leather.--[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 03:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Elf

2010-12-10T03:14:02Z

Dudemcman: /* Counter offer leather */ new section

v0.31 Talk:Adventurer mode

2010-12-03T05:22:33Z

Dudemcman: /* Companions choose the innocent over you. */ new section

== Bleeding, wounds, combat ==

Anyone know if bleeding can be stopped in adventurer mode? My adventurer got hit by an arrow and bled to death. I removed the arrow but couldn't do anything about THE BLOOD. [[User:Haruspex Pariah|Haruspex Pariah]] 02:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

It looks like wounds can become infected (even after partial healing) in adventurer mode. My whole right leg is "swelling", and I keep vomiting everywhere. I wonder if it'll become worse. [[User:Timst|Timst]] 13:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

It might be worth pointing out and further testing that the combat in adventure mode seems to be much more detailed in DF2010. There are now nerves and layers of fat and muscle involved and it will tell you if you have served motor nerves etc. or just cut into fat. Also I must agree that hammers and other blunt weapons seem to be useless as in arena mode I used an adamantine hammer and couldn't do anything but bruise the heck out of people :P Switch to an axe and suddenly the same monster died on one hit (A dragon) Could use further testing of course, also to see if that weakness carries over to Fortress Mode so people can make informed choices when attempting to defend their fortress : --[[Special:Contributions/205.145.64.64|205.145.64.64]] 17:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)Railick Stonemane
* Adamantine blunt weapons are poor because they are very lightweight; use heavier metals for blunt weapons. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 18:29, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm relatively certain it's relevant to my infection - after killing a dragon (all dragonfire blocked), I reported the victory thrice, and upon entering another town and thus leaving the travel, my feet spontaneously began melting. None of my equipment was on fire, so I'm assuming my infected finger (smashed apart of course) spread to my feet and the message was interpreted as melting, a half dozen times per movement. Very disconcerting.
(Another possible explanation is that the stairs of mead halls in a select few human capitals have faulty magma traps.)
: That sounds more like a bug than how infection or burning work. You could keep a perpetual infection with no effect other than occasional puss drainage, and it doesn't spread unless you also have a syndrome. Another explanation for the melting is that you might have walked across items burning in the wake of the dragonfire and set your feet aflame; you don't get any message that your equipment is on fire until you feel the pain of the flames. [[User:DokEnkephalin|DokEnkephalin]] 17:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

== Don't know where he lives ==

Have been tasked, as my first quest, to kill an armadillo fiend that is the god of one of the two of the only civilization left's religions. He's in my town, but I've no clue where he is

:The 'Q'uest Log should be useful for finding things. I think it can also help pinpoint quest targets. If you're in the same world map tile (e.g. you're in the same town), zooming in on something will show you the region map instead of the world map. I was able to see a 3x3 town on the map this way (or maybe it was a cave; I forget). Region tiles represent a 48x48 space IIRC, so that should help you find the rascal. -[[Special:Contributions/128.211.250.173|128.211.250.173]] 06:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

::I've encountered this as well; it's my (untested) assumption that the creature in question is somewhere in a cavern underneath the town. Also, the few times I've used the quest log to zoom in on a quest target, the most precise it gets is showing the 3x3 grid on the "local area" map where the Site in question is. [[User:Anacrucis|Anacrucis]] 21:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
:::If he's a demon, he's probably in one of the various houses and he's probably the town's Law-giver. If you actually attack him, the entire town will go hostile and try to kill you, including the guy who gave you the quest in the first place. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 22:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

== Mainspace redirect ==
Why does the mainspace Adventurer mode (and thereby the link on the main page) point to the 40d adventure mode? --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 15:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

== No attribute increase in adventure mode? ==
On the page it said that the attributes don't increase, but I started a dwarven adventurer and looked at his stats and it said I had a very good focus. But later that changed to a great ability to focus. So not only attributes INCREASE but also soul attributes can increase with no apparent reason.--[[User:Niggy|Niggy]] 13:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
: The article can't be accurate; attributes can increase with ranks in any skills. So far it appears to be random whether you get an increase and which attribute increases with each skill, but if you get enough to Legendary, you will notice some attributes climbing to Superhuman. [[User:DokEnkephalin|DokEnkephalin]] 08:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

== Dwarven Fortresses ==
I've seen a couple dwarven fortresses in adventure mode and in each case there's a large outer wall with a ring of stairs down to a "first" floor, in which there is a centered column of ramps down to the next level (all typical from ver. 40d). The ramp leads to a "ramp room" which has another ramp (column) opposite the first, then this repeats down several more levels, until you reach a level where there is no 'next' ramp down. Importantly, each ramp room is completely enclosed. There appears to be no actual body to the fortress, no rooms, hallways, certainly no workshops, etc. [[User:Piwowk|Piwowk]] 22:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
:It's been reported in the bug tracker. I actually once discovered a fortress just like this in 40d, but it seems that something has broken and is causing '''all''' worldgen dwarf fortresses to turn out like this. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 23:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
::I have discovered exactly one dwarf settlement in 31.04 that actually had halls and rooms in the underground layer. Just one. [[User:Anacrucis|Anacrucis]] 21:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
:::There is a workaround... well, kind of. By replacing DEFAULT_SITE_TYPE and LIKES_SITE (latter could be an overkill) from CAVE_DETAILED to CITY in raw's "default_entity.txt" you can supply every dorf's civilization with human architector, who '''can''' design functioning shops and whistles (having bad habit of building things above the ground though)

== Thoughts on Elf Adventurers ==
The current version of this page doesn't talk about the playable races so I thought this might be the best place to put my thoughts on elves:
:*Wood equipment makes them initially a poor choice as discussed on 40d page; however they can use the same size equipment as dwarfs (and goblins) which makes looting better gear a little easier than for a Human.
:*Elves seem to be friendly to most animals and non-evil creatures. They seem to lose this ability if they retire and then restart, though the loss might be caused by some other action (like killing Bambi) and the retire/restart correlation purely coincidental. Needs more testing.
:*If you lack the patience to reroll countless elf adventurers and send them to their deaths in search of a metal weapon, you could roll a dwarf character, put all it's starting steel and bronze gear in it's backpack, and drop the backpack somewhere like a human town, then retire the character. Revisiting that town with your elf, you should be able to find the backpack; this is more efficient than dropping the items individually as they all seem to stay in the backpack and only the backpack is "scattered." Whether or not this method requires more or less patience than the endless stream of dead elf adventurers method requires further testing.
:*Based on reviews of the Legends logs, attacking (or being attacked by?) members of a given Entity seems to make that Entity an Enemy of any Entities your adventurer belongs to. While I haven't tested this, it would seem possible that this could cause your civilization in Fortress mode to be at War with someone on embark, if you made some enemies with a dwarf adventurer of the same civilization. Playing an elf would avoid this presumed problem as long as you don't retire in a dwarven town or anything. (After all, every dwarf knows that elves are no [[fun]].) I propose more testing for this.
[[User:Anacrucis|Anacrucis]] 21:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

:The lack of random encounters from savage creatures does shelter a starting elf, from unprepared attacks that can end a novice dwarf or human quickly, but also from developing skill that other races have to. You can pick your targets at leisure, but the interface gets tedious as you have to confirm each and every attack. Since you can pretty much ignore wildlife, in later stages you don't have to waste time on the zerg rushes from outleagued critters. If evil lands exist in your world, they're a decent place to farm weapon experience in low-to-mid levels, until you're ready for local questing.
:The early equipment problem is solved with hand-picked recruitment of dwarves eager for glorious death. Goblin civilizations populated with dwarves tend to have more dwarves with better overall gear, so they make good targets, and they're fitting enemies for your dwarven companions to die in battle with. Money is pretty much pointless for elves, so you can travel light with only the weapons you like, or are currently training. You can have full steel in short order with this method; better gear than human coin can buy.
[[User:DokEnkephalin|DokEnkephalin]] 08:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

== Starting wars? ==
Can an adventurer cause wars by traveling around and attacking peaceful civilizations? --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 18:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
:Sort of. If the civilizations aren't already at war, they won't call it war. But if you're allied with one and cause trouble in another, they will name anyone you attack or who attacks you as an enemy, who will become a quest target. You could very easily make this snowball into a chain of aggressions from your allied nation on the ones that you're attacking. Even better, if you bring companions from your allies into settlement that has declared you enemy, they will run completely amok. This could be any nations at any range, whether they have any good reason for war or not. [[User:DokEnkephalin|DokEnkephalin]] 17:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

== Pools and swimming ==
Is the "climb out of pool" bugged in 31.08? Alt-move (and shift & ctrl) doesn't climb out. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 19:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
:Once you issue the command, press Enter (or click the mouse) and you should actually be on the surface - there's some bugs with delayed input that have yet to be resolved. If Alt+Move isn't actually giving you a movement menu, then you're probably drowning and aren't physically capable of climbing out of the pool. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 19:32, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
:: So an adventurer should invest in the swimming skill, because of charging attacks and dodging jumps. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 23:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Now DF .31.13, (alt-move, a, enter) lets you jump into river for a swim, and similarly climb out. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 14:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

==Bandages==
After getting cut up way more than is socially acceptable, I've concluded that you cannot use cloth to bandage a wound. If anyone can prove that they can, please, by all means revert my edit.

==Adventure Mode Combat==

or how to kill everything.

'''The Weapons'''
There are many types of weapons; not all can kill and maim at the same level.

Swords are your jack of all trades weapon, doing reasonable slashing damage.
The size of the blade helps in making bigger wound and dismembering foes.

'''subtypes'''
*large dagger*
Short sword
long sword
scimitar
two-handed sword

large dagger small weak shallow cuts and stabs, at best a fall back blade, at worst throw it at someone. NOTE uses dagger skill, not sword skill.

Short swords are the weakest true sword, but are still good for use fighting wolfs and the like, just don't take it to fight a dragon.

Long sword it's longer and so it cuts deeper and dismembers more.

Scimitar, ok this is just as good as the short sword.

Two-handed sword 5 times the cutting power of the short sword,it stabs go in 2 time as far, truly this is the king swords

'''Axes'''

ok a lot like swords but bigger and better when fighting armor.

'''subtypes'''
battle axe
great axe
halberd

battle axe on par with the long sword a good weapon over all.

great axe bigger and better.

halberd the oddball it has a smaller edge but can stab as well as chop, think of the offspring of a Short sword and a spear.

'''Spears'''
ok the spear ot as good or as bad as it was,yes no endless Stick-ins but no more stabbing every internal organs in one blow.

'''subtypes'''
spear
*pike*

spear a poor anti-group weapon for the love of Armok use a different weapon.

pike ok it stabs a little deeper and uses pike skill, still use a different weapon.

'''Blunts'''
good at smashing stuff and fighting armor.
for blunt weapons there weight is the main factor.

'''subtypes'''
war hammer
mace
maul
flail
morningstar

war hammer with skill to can put nice holes in heads.

mace has more weight than the warhammer, in skilled hands Goblins shatter like glass. In less skilled hands it's bruising.

maul a bigger mace,now hit stuff harder.

flail mace on a chain,hit them not you.

morningstar spiked ball on a chain cuts as it smashes.

'''other weapons'''
the odd one.

whip
pick
scourge

whip shatters the bone,bruise the flesh.

pick goes in deep,rips organs ,shatters bones.fear the miners.

scourge tears muscle,brakes bones.
--[[User:Funk|Funk]]

== Worldgen for Adventurers ==

It might be a good idea to have a section on worldgen parameters and settings that are useful to adventurers.

For ex: I always set CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN and CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN to 15 instead of 0, this gives a much less maze-like feel to the underground, allowing you to travel with only occasional side-trips to get around an impassible region. It's not so hot for fortress mode, since it's harder to wall out the nasties, but still doable.

I also set CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MAX to 80 -- it costs a bit in framerate when you enter a region and the underground water begins to flow, but a 100% flooded region once prevented me from using the 'T'ravel trick to escape the underworld. It told me I couldn't fast travel because I was swimming, and the region square I was on had not a single tile of dry land. (A fairly common thing with this set to 100%) Wound up having to backtrack for hours. (This was before I tried the openness and passage density params, though.) This also seems to me to give slightly more natural-shaped underground pools.

Maybe a mention of MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN and NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN, which will get you more interesting stuff to kill, or ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE, which keeps you from having to talk to people to find caves.

BEAST_END_YEAR is handy, too -- an adventurer probably doesn't care if the world still has a ton of megabeasts. Hey, they're not invading his house, right? It defaults to not ending worldgen until 80% of all megabeasts are dead, but I usually reduce that to 50 or less.

You don't want to have worldgen end too early, though. I find ending the worldgen early (like pre-500) leaves tons of megabeasts, but also gives you nearly empty cavern layers.

Finally, I find boosting the SAVAGERY minimum to about 10 is a good idea for adventurers, since it means less time spent trudging through empty forest when you're hunting, while not going to the insane step-WOLFAMBUSH-step-WOLFAMBUSH-step extreme.

--Anonymous July 30, 2010

== The Basics ==

I think it would be worth adding a paragraph or two describing the basics of Adventurer mode. What it is, and most importantly, how to start it. (Can it be started if a Fortress game is in progress?) -- Anonymous 2010-08-02

I definitely agree. I've spent around half an hour trying to 'g'et prickleberries etc, starving to death while my human (who only started with copper spear and dagger, apparently due to hitting 'play now') merrily ignites everything. Getting a waterskin is nearly impossible, as there are no towns for miles in every direction from my starting place. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but none of this really basic stuff is covered here.
* drink/lick the blood spatters off your clothes, for survival. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 10:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

== Small Bugs - Conversations, Other little niggles ==

What's the wiki's policy on minor bugs? I found that in adventurer mode, asking peasants their profession makes them reply "I am a .", presumably because they have no job. Should I post that here, or is that too small? I can imagine the list getting full quick otherwise.

Ah - and apparently you can hold two things in one hand - although you need to juggle your inventory round to do it. Weird.

== priesthood ==

There's more to say on the subject, but most of it is better suited to a separate article on religion. It could be pared down to the basics dealing with quest finding, even though they don't currently give quests, the info could lay a foundation for it in future releases.[[User:DokEnkephalin|DokEnkephalin]] 17:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

== Companions limited to 2? ==

While in adventure mode I was playing as a human. I was able to convince a swordsman and a hammerman to join me. When trying to convince another hammerman to join me, he told me
"With a band so large, what share of the glory would I have?"

Does this mean that the companion limit has been decreased?

--[[Special:Contributions/98.144.80.228|98.144.80.228]] 16:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

*This happened for me, too. I've tried it using dwarves and elves, and I was only ever able to get 2 followers. [[User:Gasheegooger|Gasheegooger]] 23:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
*Deon managed to get seven followers. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 09:58, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
*The number of followers you can get is determined by your notoriety; when you first start out you'll only be able to get two warriors to join your band, but once you get some tasks under your belt and slay a dragon or two you can have upward of fifteen. More may be possible but I sort of figured 15 was enough and stopped there. [[Special:Contributions/72.230.201.43|72.230.201.43]] 20:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

== "<Adventurer> was guided by forces unknown" ==

That says if you check out your dead adventurer in legends.
* Yep, one of Armok's little helpers guided the person. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 10:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

== tips and tricks in.31.17 ==
<blockquote>
Some vanilla .17 adventuring... this might be helpful to you. 

1. start a demigod adventurer. Buy agility and dodging. Surrounded == dead. 
2. run away from bogeymen, leave the low-agility ones far behind. 
3. no adventurer can ever start with armor, it seems. 

4. try aimed ("A") easy attacks, stab torso with sword. Or slash at foot/hand. Miss because bogeymen have very good dodging skills. 
5. use trees to force enemies into single file. 
6. "C" change combat mode to strike instead of charge. Charging makes you trip and fall often. 

8. one bogeyman is about as difficult as .16 's elephant/ogre/giant/marshtitan. Because of dodging skill. 
9. fighting skill may give you lots of nice counterstrikes. You might want to practice fighting with slow-moving wildlife (not camels!) 
10. "mortal wound" means internal organ bruising, not dangerous, unlike "CANT STAND". 
11. haul bogeyman body parts to town to show off. 
 
12. inside a crowded building, would need a "swap places with friendly" key so can move around. 
Quote from: Miko19: You can press "s" to lay on the ground, and then you can move on the same tile as an other person is 
Oookay... crawl under the moronic humans who cower inside their houses, check. 
 
13. goblins and dwarven bandits are nothing compared to bogeymen. (Or my skills got really high already.) 
14. cross the rivers and streams in travel mode, not with swimming. 
15. go thank Toady for adding bandits and "The quest for armor". 

16. some humans are morons and block doorways for hours on end. 
17. wear shirt, dress, dress, dress, robe for "protection". 
18. ask the cyan-coloured humans (who have no profession) to join you. 
19. your human companions will have a longer sight range than you, at least at night when the felines attack. 
20. wear one more dress. And two togas. 
21. the red-cross-blinking cyan @ draws you eye away from the brown, dirt-coloured @. And the companion will crawl miles and miles, matching your speed, faithfully following you. 

Q for quest log, z to see where the quest target is. Esc to exit quest log. 
Z, d, enter to sleep the night. 

ps. some of these notes are more like bug reports to Toady. --[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 09:58, 13 November 2010 (UTC) 
</blockquote>

== .31.17 peasant/hero/demigod, thoughts ==
About the adventurer... think of "peasant" as "joe average who was the worst learner in the whole county". Novice in seven skills after many years of trying. 
A "hero" could be a circus strongman, strong and tough, or a tumbler (acrobat) with superior agility and above average patience and focus, adequate in eight skills due to 1-2 years of training as a teenager. 
A "demigod" is one in a thousand, competent in nine skills, perhaps a former soldier with five years of experience. Or proficient in 4.5 skills (not even a legendary in fortress mode, that soldier.)--[[User:TomiTapio|TomiTapio]] 11:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC) 

== Info on diff. between Adv Mode & Dwarf Mode ==
In adding some minor information to the Quick Start guide, I fell upon a conundrum. In that article I wanted to add a fair bit more information, but I wasn't sure that it belonged there (likely not as part of a quick start guide). Indeed, I'm not sure where to put them at all, whether they deserved their own page. I am thinking about: attributes and skills, which deserves more depth than what is necessary for dwarf mode (such as suggested skills to invest in, and the function of such skills and attributes in adventure mode); the benefits of the various races (which is not even covered in this article); probably known "quirks", such as the virtual non-existance of "small" equipment for use by dwarves and that goblins are a source; among other things. Should they simply get their own page so they can belong specifically to an Adventure Mode category, or perhaps add an "In Adventure Mode" section to the relevant pages in order to detail those differences? 
I ask this question here since this seem to be a bit of catch all discussion area for adventure mode. Seemed better suited to it than the Quick Start discussion page, anyway.
: [[User:Niveras|Niveras]] 02:21, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

This is weird. I thought demigods were not allowed starting companions like heroes -- I tested it with two different demigods and the townspeople consistently gave me "I would....rather not" when asked about joining before I had completed any quest, and edited the page to reflect that. Yet, someone changed the edit back saying they *always* take two companions when playing demigod. Can anyone else test?
Is that right? Am I subject to a bug?
: Anonymous, Nov 15

::I'm the one who made that edit, I think your problem is you were trying to recruit regular townspeople; look around towns/hamets for some actual fighters, or head to a fortress and try to recruit them there. It takes a while before you can get non-fighters to come with you, because whether they join you or not doesn't depend on how much stronger you are than them like in previous versions, but by how famous you are for being a hero, and they know they're weak and probably just cannonfodder unless you're a legend. Or at least that's my theory. I do admit that I haven't played any Peasant-class or Hero-class adventurers yet, so I can't say there is ''no'' difference between their abilities to recruit, but I can say for sure that I can get two swordsmen before I do a quest with my demigods. [[Special:Contributions/72.230.201.43|72.230.201.43]] 19:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

== Ghost towns? ==

Is it a bug that I found ghost towns? Towns where there were no surviving inhabitants, but the stores are still stocked (and the items owned so I couldn't purchase anything without theft.) Was everyone just out in the fields or something?

(Also, I found a phantom hamlet, which I'm pretty sure *is* a bug. It showed up on the world map, but not the travel map. The local map had a pointer to the town, and as I walked there I hit the center but there were no buildings or people. It was safe to sleep, though, thankfully, 'cause I'd just lost all my companions to a troll attack and the sun had gone down.)

-- Anonymous, November 14, 7:08 pm pacific time

== Difficulty settings ==

What exactly are the differences between Peasant, Hero, and Demigod difficulties?
:I am fairly sure the only difference between them are the number of points you begin with to divide among your attributes and skills. [[Special:Contributions/72.230.201.43|72.230.201.43]] 02:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
::Further testing may be needed. I've gone through a spate of demigods who died suddenly, while my current character, a peasant, has developed very well through skill training and has lived long enough to get a nearly full set of steel armor in dwarf size. I don't know if he's been plain lucky, or I'm getting better, or if there's some mitigating factor in the code that takes it easier on peasants than demigods. -Anonymous, 20 November 2010

== Starting Armor ==

From 31.17 and continuing in 31.18, is it correct that adventurers only start with leather clothes and never any metal armor except for a shield? - Anonymous, 18 November 2010, 3:14 UTC
:Having played about a dozen characters, this appears to be true. Currently you've got to find armor in shops, lairs, caves, and bandit camps. - Anonymous, 20 November 2010

== Equipping ==

I cannot find a way to equip a weapon.... And i searched all over the wiki and i still cannot find any place where it tells me how to equip a weapon. Any help??? -- Anonymous 198.53.163.246, 08:27 UTC, 28 November 2010

:Anything held in your hands is an available weapon. Drop what's in your hands on the ground (or 'p'ut it in a container if you have one that has room) and then get your weapon -- either 'g'etting it off the ground or 'r'emoving it from a container. It will automatically go into your primary hand (depending on handedness; DF has a lot of lefties) and be used as a weapon. Then grab your shield if you use one, or offhand weapon if you're training another skill, or leave that hand empty for choking throats if you like. -- Anonymous 74.37.93.115, 28 Nov 2010
3

==This article is terrible==
it doesnt describe much of any of the specifics of adventure mode, its all generalized ideas on the basic concept of it, with a sprinkling of various outdated versions thrown in for <s>good</s> measure. There needs to be a section on the (Q)uest section (which even i dont really get that still, companions, basic combat strategy's, and a whole crap load of other st00f. --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 05:18, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

== Companions choose the innocent over you. ==

In my experiences, attacking civilians will cause your companions to turn on you, but they still flash blue (i use maydays graphics, so its blue for me atleast), and try to kill you, im not sure how they react if you attack a soldier in a castle, or a town. more testing needed. --[[User:Dudemcman|Dudemcman]] 05:22, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

v0.31 Talk:Adventurer mode

2010-12-03T05:18:33Z

Dudemcman:

v0.31:Meat industry

2010-12-01T01:31:54Z

Dudemcman: /* Pens */

{{quality|Exceptional|02:40, 25 October 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}

This article is a quick guide to running a '''meat and related goods industry'''. If you decide to base your economy on such then keep in mind that the amount available depends on the breeding rate of your tame animals (how long the offspring takes to be born and mature), the spawning of wild animals, and/or the amount of meat and leather that traders bring.

Note that the meat industry involves many materials which can {{L|rot}} and so requires slightly more micromanagement than other {{L|industry|industries}}.

'''Summary''': Obtain some animals; kill and butcher them to obtain bones, (organ-)meat, fat, skulls/bones/horns and raw hides; the meat can be used immediately but the hide needs to be tanned into leather and the fat needs to be processed into tallow; finally cook the tallow into a meal (or make soap with it), and craft the bones, skull, horns and leather into an end product.

== Acquiring Animals and their products ==
There are several sources for obtaining {{L|Animals|animals}}, outlined below. Alternatively you can skip that business and just {{L|trade}} directly for {{L|leather}} and {{L|meat}}. You'll miss out on {{L|horn|horns}} (neglible), {{L|fat}}, and {{L|bone|bones}} though.

===Embark===
You can buy animals on {{L|embark}} and even decide how many males and females of each animal you embark with. Since you need only one male to breed, you could embark with one bull and 3 cows. Note, though, that with the exception of cats and dogs, buying animals on embark is extremely expensive. You also get one random {{L|Domestic animal|draft animal}} on embark that drags your wagon. These can be butchered when needed, or be kept in the hopes that {{L|Trade#Liaisons|traders}} will supply matching animals for breeding. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to ''buy'' one: If you happen to have a female, chances are that sooner rather than later it will meet a companion among the traders' many pack animals. Nature will find a way.

=== Trading ===
''Requires: A {{L|Trade depot|trade depot}}, a {{L|Broker|trader}}, a {{L|merchant}}, and some {{L|Finished goods|tradeable goods}}''

You can purchase animals, meat and leather from a merchant. Animals can either be kept for breeding (see [[#Breeding|''Breeding'' below]]) or butchered immediately (see [[#Butchering|''Butchering'' below]]). Elves may bring more tamed exotic animals which are additionally interesting for defense purposes.

If you wish to import leather in sufficient quantity to keep your {{L|leatherworker|leatherworkers}} occupied year-round, then you should request leather to be imported from the trading {{L|liaison|liaisons}}. It might be necessary that you request every type of leather at low priority in order to ensure the merchant comes back with a large quantity next year (they usually bring excessive amounts even if you don't). You can only buy leather from {{L|human}} and {{L|dwarf|dwarven}} caravans.

=== Hunting ===

''Requires: A {{L|hunter}} and huntable {{L|Creatures|wildlife}}'' 
''Recommended: A {{L|dog}} (or three), leather {{L|armor}}(not usually neccessary with hunting animals), and a {{L|weapon}} - preferably a {{L|crossbow}}, {{L|quiver}}, and {{L|bolt|bolts}}''

It should be noted that hunters will ignore some wildlife, e.g. {{L|zombie}} {{L|groundhog|groundhogs}} {{verify}}. Depending on where you settled your {{L|fortress}}, your {{L|biome}} may have no wildlife at all.

After equipping him or herself, a dwarven hunter will make a beeline towards the nearest wild animal and attempt to kill it, regardless of whether it is one amongst a large pack of hostile creatures{{verify}}. Upon killing the beast the dwarf will carry the {{L|corpse}} directly to the nearest {{L|butcher's shop}}, the closest {{L|refuse}} {{L|stockpile}} if none is available, or the nearest meeting area if no stockpile exists{{verify}}. Once he has deposited the corpse, it will be ready for butchering (see [[#Butchering|''Butchering'' below]]).

If the hunter kills other animals on his return journey while defending himself then those animals will not be carried indoors{{verify}}. To avoid wasting them you need to change your general {{k|o}}rders to <tt>Gather refuse from outside</tt> (note that selecting this option may have undesirable side-effects).

=== Soldiers ===
''Requires: Any number of {{L|soldier|soldiers}} and huntable {{L|Creatures|wildlife}}'' 

If so desired, you can order your soldiers out to kill wild animals by selecting their squads or the soldiers individually (see the article on {{L|Attack|Attacking}}). This takes some small management, but is particularly useful if a large herd appears and you want to get them all before they emigrate to less blood-soaked pastures; be prepared to process them all, however (see below). Soldiers will not kill or butcher {{L|Domestic animal|domestic}} or {{L|tame}} animals. Take note that currently soldiers will attack animals regardless of the target you've given them, as they will attack the nearest non-friendly creature in sight when told to move somewhere or kill a target.

=== Cage traps ===
''Requires: {{L|Cage|Cages}}, {{L|mechanism|mechanisms}}, and a {{L|mechanic}}''

It is also possible to catch animals through judicious use of {{L|cage trap|cage traps}}. This, of course, involves building cage traps where animals will walk. Once they are trapped the caged animal (or {{L|invader}}) will be delivered to an animal stockpile and the trap will be reset with a fresh cage.

Cage traps should be built where animals ''will'' walk, not where they are when you decide to trap them. Any dwarves sent out to create and arm traps in the animals' midst will scare them away or trigger their aggression. To successfully trap large animals, form a choke point some distance away from them: build walls, dig {{L|channel|channels}}, eliminate ramps to create sheer cliffs, use ponds, etc. to create a continuous barrier to movement.

Leave a small gap one or two tiles wide (depending on how many of the critters you want to trap) and build your cage traps there. If the animals haven't moved off or been scared off by the time you're done, and they're docile enough to not attack once they see your dwarves, use military orders to send a dwarf (or several) around behind the animals and herd them toward the choke point.

Note that when using channels and ponds together to create a choke point, connecting the channel all the way up to the pond's edge will end up draining the pond. If this is undesirable for your fort's water supply plans, be sure to leave a tile between the edge of the pond and the edge of the channel, and build a cage trap or wall instead.

Note also that cage traps cannot be built within a certain number of tiles of the map edge, so when planning your funnels and choke points, be sure to leave four or five tiles as a buffer zone.

=== Breeding ===
''Requires: One or more adult females and one adult male of each species and time'' 
''Recommended: {{L|Cage|Cages}} and/or {{L|restraint|restraints}}''

If a male and a female of the same species exist on your map then sooner or later (and probably sooner) the male will impregnate the female. No contact between a male and female is needed - pregnacy can ''and will'' occur regardless of distance, physical obstacles such as walls or locked doors, number of each gender (beyond the first), and even ownership. ''(This is often referred to as "breeding by spores".)'' Even a male in a herd of wild animals outside the fortress walls can impregnate a female locked deep in a lowest level. A female can get pregnant again immediately after giving birth. The only thing that has been reported to prevent pregnancy is caging, but females that are already pregnant can give birth while caged.

Some {{L|immigrant|immigrants}} will bring {{L|pet|pets}} that might form or complete breeding pairs.

One strategy includes {{L|restraint|restraining}} most/all your livestock near your {{L|butcher's shop}}, as a large number of free-roaming animals will reduce your game speed. Additionally it reduces the amount of time it takes butchers to track down and retrieve animals they are to slaughter.

For the same reasons as above, a common strategy is to cage all your young until matured because they do not give the same amount of bones, meat, and fat as adults. (Keep in mind, though, that some tamed wild species take more than 1 year to mature, unlike most domestic animals. For example, it may be excusable to butcher an elephant calf right away, rather than wait 10 years for it to mature and produce more meat and bones.

Furthermore:
* Cages can hold an unlimited number of animals, so you only need one.
* Caged animals do not path, and therefore, do not consume a lot of processor speed.
* Distinguishing between breeding animals and butcherable livestock is easier when clearly separated.
* Caged cats cannot adopt owners (thus decreasing the chances of a {{L|catsplosion}}).
* You can define a {{L|zoo}} from a cage, increasing overall fortress wealth, dwarven happiness, etc..

Using {{L|cage trap|cage traps}} judiciously (or taking advantage of the animals {{L|elf|elves}} trade) can sometimes snag you a breeding pair of a wild animal. Tame something unusual and start something crazy, like an {{L|alligator}} farm!
Note however that you need a {{L|Dungeon_Master|Dungeon Master}} before Exotic Animals will breed [[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1677]], and as of v0.31.03 there's an [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=519 outstanding bug] causing the Dungeon Master never to show up except in rare reported cases, despite having met the demands.

Also note that once a certain number of animals of a particular type are present in your fortress (currently observed to be around 50), that type of animal will cease to become pregnant (existing pregnancies will produce young, but they will not become pregnant again); once enough adults are slaughtered, more will begin to be born.

====Pens====
Animals on {{L|restraint|restraints}} still can {{L|path}} (1 tile in any direction from the chain/rope), and that can hurt your {{L|Maximizing framerate|framerate}}. By making a series of 1x1 rooms with doors set to "non-pet-passable", and restraining the animals there, the animals have nowhere to go and so {{L|path|pathing}} is not a problem. The door keeps them from wandering; the restraint is necessary to get them into the room in the first place. (See {{L|Restraint}} for proper removal technique.)

{{L|Activity zone#Pit/Pond|Pits}} can also be adapted for this purpose, without the restraint and with multiple animals.
The pens idea would be a good idea if pets actually understood non-pet-passable during calculation of paths. Instead they believe they can get through during mental calculations. Cold, hard, reality stops them at the door, but they continue to path as if they could get through, so, they just stand there (until a dwarf comes by and opens the door, at which point they gleefully run past). Pets in cages helps framerate the most, followed closely by restraints, since the search space bottoms out after only 2 moves (corner to corner). Pits, with no access besides (raised) bridges and (closed) floodgates, are also very effective, as pathing will stop as soon as the space of the pit is exhausted, so it's like a restraint with a slightly longer leash. Pens using floodgates would work, although loading the pets in would be nigh impossible without dropping them in from above, as anything in the way of a closing floodgate stops it from closing. It would be quite extreme, but such a collection of 1x1 pits could be an effective way of stopping pathfinding while retaining breeding. One could even use bars instead of floodgates, and have a really proper zoo/cage.

== Butchering ==
''Requires: A {{L|butcher's shop}}, a {{L|butcher}}, and either a stray tamed {{L|animal}} marked for slaughter or one killed by a hunter or soldier''

Note: While you can't butcher {{L|pet|pets}}, their offspring will be at your disposal without restriction.

Once an animal has been killed you only have a limited amount of time to butcher the corpse before it rots. If your butcher is distracted by other tasks this is quite impossible.

By default a {{L|butcher's shop}} will automatically queue <tt>Butcher animal</tt> whenever an animal corpse is available, or <tt>Slaughter animal</tt> for stray animals marked for slaughter. An animal corpse or body part is available if it is taken to the butcher's shop or in a refuse stockpile within a certain distance of the shop. An animal is not available if it is merely lying around. Once butchered the animal will yield one skull (though {{L|hydra|hydras}} ''should'' currently produce more than one), one raw hide and depending on the animal type a number of (prepared)(organ-)meat pieces, bones, potentially {{L|horn|horns}}/{{L|hoof|hoofs}}, fat and cartilage. The skill of the butcher only affects the time taken for <tt>Butcher animal</tt> task (<tt>Slaughter animal</tt> occurs in the blink of an eye), not the amount produced nor the quality.

Meat and fat goes to your food stockpile. Bones, horns, hoofs, hair, cartilage and raw hides go to the refuse stockpile. Cartilage and hair have no use and should be disposed of (note that hair doesn't rot), but you would be well put to create custom stockpiles for hides next to your tanner's shop (see [[#Tanning|''Tanning'' below]]), for bones/horns/hoofs next to your craftsdwarves workshop (see [[#Bone carving|''Bone carving'' below]]), and changing the settings on your main refuse pile to not accept bones, horns/hoofs and hides.

If it takes too long for the butchered parts to be hauled into the stockpile, the food will rot and miasma spread. To prevent this, it is advisable to build the butcher's workshop outside of the fortress, near refuse piles (you may want it inside the walls though). The fresh air prevents miasma spreading.

If the animal is butchered just before it rots, the products of the animal MAY not rot. It is unknown whether the time of rotting for butchering products is based on the time of death of the animal or the time of production of the butchering returns.{{verify}}

To keep your animal population growing you should preferably butcher the males except for one of each species you are breeding, because one male is enough to impregnate all the females. The number of males does not affect how frequently the females give birth as long as you have at least one{{verify}} (which can also be a pet).

=== Overdrive ===

In some instances - most notably, after {{L|rhesus macaque}} or {{L|mandrill|mandrill}} invasions, or killing some other large herd with your soldiers - you may find yourself with more bodies and {{L|severed body part|severed body parts}} than you can process. In this case it is a good idea to set up some temporary extra butcher and tanners' shops (and butchers and tanners) to process them all before they rot. Butchers are more important because their workshops have a tendency to get cluttered quickly.

== Using the animal products==
Animal products can support several industries within the fortress: they provide meat and fat for cooking, leather for bags, clothing and armor, and bones for {{L|Bolt|ammunition}}, trade goods and in desperate circumstances armor. Horns/hoofs can currently only be used for decorations and to make crafts from. The {{L|value}} of an animal product is multiplied by the animal's modvalue, so items made from common animals are less valuable than items made from rare animals like a {{L|giant cave spider}} or a {{L|dragon}}. An animal's modvalue can be found in the creature raw files.

===Bones and Skulls===
''Requires: {{L|Bone carver}}, {{L|craftsdwarf's workshop}}, and some {{L|bone|bones}}, {{L|horn|horns}}, {{L|hoof|hoofs}} or {{L|skull|skulls}}''

Butchering an animal produces quite a few bones and a skull. In the case of some animals (like cows) also horns and hoofs. By setting up a craftsdwarf workshop near your abattoir you can turn these to use, such as turning your piles of bones into bone bolts for your {{L|archer|archers}} to practice with.

The only useful thing to do with a skull is turn it into a {{L|totem}} for {{L|trading}}. Note that totems do not fall under any category in the "Move trade goods to depot" screen, so you need to {{k|s}}earch for them. Usually however they will be in a finished goods bin and not show up at all, so just transport the bins to the depot.

Note that hoofs count as 'horns' in the sense of the 'Decorate with horn'/'Make horn crafts' task in your craftsdwarf's shop.

===Meat and fat===
''Requires: a {{L|cook}}, a {{L|kitchen}}, and some {{L|meat}} or {{L|fat}}''

{{L|Fat}} can be rendered into {{L|tallow}} at a {{L|kitchen}}, and then used as an ingredient in meals. The various organs and meat can be eaten raw, or used as an ingredient.

Tallow can also be turned into {{L|soap|soap}}. Not worth much as tradegood considering the required effort, but since version 0.31.01 soap plays an important role in staving off infections when performing operations in your {{L|Healthcare|hospital}}, and it's recommended to stock your hospitals with at least some bars. See the {{L|soap|soap article}} on how to make soap.

=== Skins/Leather ===
''Requires: a {{L|tanner}}, a {{L|tanner's shop}}, and {{L|skin|raw hide}}''

As with the butcher's shop, the tanner's shop will queue <tt>Tan raw hide</tt> automatically (by default), the tanner's skill has no affect on quantity nor quality of the leather produced, and the task is time-sensitive because of rot.

It is quite sensible to have a single dwarf as both the butcher and tanner, as you will never need to begin tanning until you finish butchering. You could also make this same dwarf your leatherworker. It may be advisable (or not) to simply ensure that there are ''no'' stockpiles that will accept Fresh Raw Hides and to have the tanner's shops in the immediate area of the butcher's shop-if fresh raw hides can be stored in any refuse stockpile, they will instantly be designated for hauling and cannot be tanned until they have been stored. Ensuring that raw hides will not be stockpiled means that they will be available for tanning fresh off the former owner.

Once a hide has been tanned, it will be stored in a leather stockpile.

=== Leatherworking ===
''Requires: A {{L|leather works}}, a {{L|leatherworker}}, and a {{L|tanned hide}}''

Once you have tanned hides, whether created yourself or bought from a merchant, you can use them to produce leather goods at the {{L|leather works}}.

== Summary ==
''Worker type / Labor''

*{{L|Ambusher}} / {{L|Hunting}}
** A {{L|crossbow}} or other {{L|weapon}}
** {{L|Bolt|Bolts}}, {{L|quiver}}
** Leather {{L|armor}}
** {{L|Cross-training|Stats buffing}}
** {{L|Archery target|Archery practice}}

*{{L|Soldier|Soldiers}}/{{L|Military}}
**{{L|Soldier|Soldiers}}
**Some form of {{L|armor}}
**Any {{L|weapon}}

*{{L|Cage trap}}ping
** {{L|Mechanic}}
** {{L|Mechanic's workshop}}
** {{L|Mechanisms}}
** {{L|Cage|Cages}}

*Breeding
** {{L|Animals}}
** {{L|Cage|Cages}}
** {{L|Restraint|Restraints}}

*Processing
** {{L|Butcher}} / Butchery
*** {{L|Butcher's shop}}
** {{L|Tanner}} / Tanning
*** {{L|Tanner's shop}}
** {{L|Leatherworker}} / Leatherworking
*** {{L|Leather works}}
** {{L|Bone carver}} / Bone carving
*** {{L|Craftsdwarf's workshop}}
** {{L|Cook}} / Cooking
*** {{L|Kitchen}}
*** {{L|Barrel}}s

==See also==
*{{L|Leather}}
*{{L|Industry}}

{{Workshops FAQ}}
{{Category|Guides}}
{{Category|Industry}}

v0.31:Defense guide

2010-11-30T03:56:53Z

Dudemcman: /* Terrain */

{{quality|Masterwork|02:35, 08 November 2010 (UTC)}}{{av}}



:''This page is one of several inter-related articles on the broader topic of defending your fortress and your dwarves. The '''defense guide''' is a general overview of the threats that will challenge your fortress and things to consider when preparing a standard defense. For tips on laying out your architecture to protect your military, see '''{{l|security design}}'''. For complex traps that are not a minor/optional part of a larger defensive plan (but might be adapted or plugged into one), see '''{{l|trap design}}'''. For specific advice on how to get your soldiers prepared for any threat, see '''{{l|military design}}'''.

In Dwarf Fortress, you will often find yourself beset by hostile creatures looking to murder your dwarves or take their treasures. Protecting your fortress from intruders is a challenging task and a broad, complex topic. A wide variety of {{l|creature}}s can threaten your dwarves, and there is no one approach or philosophy that perfectly addresses every possibility. Fortress layout, military organization and training, traps and more, all contribute to the overall "defense" and survivability of your fortress and the dwarves that live and work both within there and in the world around it, and likewise no one article can include every last detail. This guide will pull from many other articles, but will prefer to refer to those rather than re-post information that is already found (and better placed) there.

There are three important things to consider when planning the defenses for your fortress. First, you must protect the fortress itself - the buildings, the hallways, the dwarves within it. But second, protecting the dwarves outside and topside as they go about their work is also important. These two goals can often be rather divergent, as your dwarves may need to wander the open countryside to collect herbs, cut trees, hunt, fish, and while outside the bounds of your fortress they can find themselves quite vulnerable. 
Lastly, there is game style - you want the game to be "fun" for you, and with some strategies it's quite possible to defend yourself into complete boredom, or just go down a road that is not attractive style-wise. While this article cannot tell you how to have fun, it will comment on this when appropriate, and you should keep it in mind as well.

'''Note''' - There is not room in this article to expand adequately on every sub-topic - ''please'' see specific articles for a ''complete'' discussion as desired.

:::::'''''Editors & Contributors''' - Please see the discussion page before posting.

==General guidelines==

While admitting that "Rules are made to be broken", there are some general recommendations that have a proven value in defending a fortress:

* '''Minimize fortress entrances:''' Have a strong and clear distinction between inside and outside. This usually corresponds to underground and surface, but not always - you can have a complete medieval-style castle complex on the surface. But each point of entry should be hardened against attack. Don't make more entrances than really necessary. If there is a useless or redundant opening, seal it off, one way or another. (Some creatures can destroy doors and drawbridges if they can reach them.)

* '''Concentric circles:''' Think redundancy - one wall may not be enough. With the existence of door-destroying and bow-wielding attackers, double or multiple hard barriers between the inside and the outside is essential to fend off the worst assaults, and if they get inside one barrier it's nice to have another behind that. Sometimes captives will escape their {{l|cage}}s ''inside'' your fortress. The choke points between the circles are where you build traps and lockable doors, and station troops.

* '''Assume the worst:''' Build up your defenses ''before'' the enemy shows up - like right now! Plan on being {{l|siege|siege}}d by scores of {{l|goblin}} archers, door-breaking {{l|troll}}s, invisible {{l|kobold}} master thieves, dive-bombing {{l|giant eagle}}s, flame-breathing {{l|fire imp}}s, angry {{l|elephant}}s, and a {{l|bronze colossus}} - ''all at once''. Hopefully, you will never have to face that kind of threat, but being ready for anything is the best bet, and, more realistically, when things go wrong (and with dwarves, they will, just believe it) you will have a buffer of defense to fall back on.

==Threats==
Danger comes in a variety of forms in Dwarf Fortress. Understanding the diverse threats is the first step to keeping your dwarves alive.

:*'''Wild animals'''
::Creatures vary in threat and habits. Some {{l|animal}}s are quite dangerous, but most are easily excluded by the humble {{l|door|door}} or {{l|Hatch cover|hatch}}, even if it's not {{l|forbidden}}. Some few are able to destroy doors and hatches, statues and other {{l|building}}s, and some are thieves (see below), or will eat your food (such as {{l|Grizzly_bear|bear}}s). A lone animal, even a clear predator, will usually flee from a stronger force, but some {{l|undead}} and evil creatures can be blindly aggressive. Combat is random, and any animal can kill any dwarf - and vice versa.

::Wild animals can appear from the topside, but also from the {{l|cavern}}s that you may accidentally open up while mining (in fact, the worst ones are often from below). In evil or savage {{l|surroundings}}, the creatures can be both much tougher and more aggressive.

:*'''Thieves & child snatchers'''
::Many creatures are "thieves" in the general sense, and offer their own potential headaches - a {{l|raccoon}} or small tribe of {{l|rhesus macaque}} or {{l|mandrill}} monkeys can enter an unsecured area unannounced, grabbing items of value and running, and it doesn't matter how many you kill if one or three make off with some prized possessions. But a creature with a listed ( {{k|u}} ) {{l|profession}} of {{l|Thief}} has a few additional nasty surprises, namely being invisible until spotted by your dwarves or {{l|domestic animal}}s, being able to bypass locked or forbidden doors, being armed with a real weapon, and some imperfect ability to avoid triggering traps (though some seem better at it than others). {{l|Kobold}}s and {{l|goblin}}s are individually more dangerous than animals, but when spotted there's a special message, either "'''Protect the hoard!'''" or "'''Protect the children!'''", as appropriate.

:*'''Ambushes'''
::An {{l|ambush}} is a small number of enemies (less than ten) that are invisible until spotted, but are easier to spot than thieves. The alert message is "'''An ambush! Curse them!'''" They skulk around the outside of your fortress, unseen until they strike, looking for wandering dwarves or caravans entering or leaving. They will often flee off the map if challenged.

:*'''Siege'''
::A {{l|siege}} is a large number of armed and organized attackers that are announced as soon as they appear on the map. The alert message is "A vile force of darkness has arrived!" While siegers are on the map, the word "SIEGE" appears in the top corners of the screen. Siegers are organized into a number of squads, each squad having a different weapon choice. Some sieges bring dangerous creatures to aid the armed attackers. If you are at {{l|war}} with a civilization, expect annual sieges at least.

:*'''Enemy archers'''
::Attackers with bows or {{l|crossbow}}s are worth separate mention as they are much, ''much'' more threatening than those with melee weapons. Out-shooting them with your marksdwarves is risky, and charging them with melee fighters is even worse. Special techniques are needed to shield your dwarves from the deadly rain of arrows.

:*'''Building destroyers'''
::Some creatures have the {{l|Creature token|BUILDINGDESTROYER tag}} in their {{l|Raw file|Raw file}}. This gives them the fearful capacity of tearing apart your doors and bridges and anything else, only excluding constructions built with the {{k|b}} + {{k|C}} keys.

:*'''Flying animals'''
::Currently, without modding, the only flying creatures are wild animals, like the {{l|giant eagle}}. Being aware of their presence is often all you can do until they choose to come to you.

:*'''Megabeasts'''
::A {{l|megabeast}} is a particularly powerful and dangerous creature, such as a {{l|dragon}} or {{l|hydra}}. Megabeasts appear alone, with an alert message that mentions the beast by name. They often have unique characteristics which present unusual challenges, but are universally dangerous.

:*'''Titans and Forgotten Beasts'''
::{{l|Titan}}s and {{l|forgotten beasts}} are similar to megabeasts in terms of size and strength, but are procedurally generated from random creature parts and may have procedurally generated special attacks (such as fire breath or web shooting) as well. Titans and forgotten beasts appear alone, with an alert message that mentions the creature by name. The two are very similar; titans attack from outdoors and forgotten beasts attack through underground caverns, but otherwise they present the same challenge. A titan from a benign biome will not attack your fort.

:*'''War'''
::Before hitting that {{k|e}} and embarking, {{k|tab}} to civilizations on the pre-embark screen, and see if you are at {{l|war|war}} with anyone. If so, things can get hot fast, with more and larger ambushes and sieges, and sooner. This is unusual, but a nasty surprise if you didn't check.

==Elements of a defense==

Dwarf Fortress is very open-ended, and any number of defensive, engineering, fortification and military principles will work in DF that have worked in reality. Combine different elements into the defense you want.

A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moat moat] with a drawbridge is perhaps the simplest defense known to Dwarvenkind, and not a bad start. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortifications Fortifications article on Wikipedia] is also a good source of inspiration. But simply shutting the outside world out and allowing invaders to mill about outside your moat is not always a desirable solution. Enemies will still prevent {{l|caravan}}s and {{l|migrant}}s from arriving, will kill {{l|liaison}}s, and prevent any desired outdoor activities. In addition, Dwarf Fortress players often find it enjoyable to perpetrate mass slaughter of invaders rather than helplessly glare at them from inside their caves.

For this, you will need a more complicated defense than a passive ditch and walls. One common method of defense is to build a walled structure above the entrance to your fortress, stationing Marksdwarves on the second floor overlooking the drawbridge-entrance. Another is to engineer a very long but narrow entrance, at the end of which are {{l|ballista}}e waiting to unload at unfortunate monsters in the field of fire. The variations are infinite.

===Physical layout===
These are the {{l|wall}}s, {{l|floor}}, {{l|fortification}}s and so on that create the towers and perimeters of your fortress, acting as physical barriers for your dwarves and against threats. However, they always work in conjunction with the other elements. Creative use of layouts can achieve some quite satisfying results.

For reference, arrow fire is usually about 20 tiles, though stray shots can travel further, and firing from higher elevations actually reduces the range about 1:1.

=====Terrain=====
:The lay of the land can be your friend, but the way of the dwarf is to shape the land as needed. Removing [[slope]]s can create safe, private terraces and valley walls that prevent all access. Chasms and [[rivers]] (not brooks!) create hard barriers, but an open chasm or magma vent can be a source of dangerous creatures. Small hills can serve as vantage points for [[archer]]s (yours or theirs!), but if carved with stairs leading up from within, they can be quick strategic strongpoints. Narrow valleys can become chokepoints for entrances, where your [[marksdwarfs]] can overlook any who come and go. Augmented by [[constructions]] below, the terrain becomes your first option for defense.

:Some players take quite a while before initially unpausing the game to look around and think about the terrain, planning their fortress entrance and envisioning basic defenses.

=====Walls=====
:Constructing walls around your entrance is the simplest start, and an essential part of fortress defense, but a wall alone is not a complete defense. Currently, no creature can knock down a wall. Not only does it keep enemies out, your archers can stand on top of the wall and fire down. Keep in mind that this makes them vulnerable to enemy fire. To help protect against that, build {{l|fortification}}s.

=====Fortifications=====
:{{l|Fortification}}s are the marksdwarf's friend. They do not allow passage, but allow hand-held missile weapons to pass through, and are often placed on top of walls for tactical advantage. Projectiles have a chance of being blocked, based on the firer's skill and distance to the fortification. There's no chance of the missile being blocked if the firer is adjacent to the fortification, with increasing chances as any distance increases. Keep your marksdwarves close and keep enemies away - if an enemy archer can walk up to your fortifications, now they're adjacent too, and the fortifications will have zero effect. Build fortified firing platforms above ground level and put a nice wide moat between the wall and the enemy. Fortifications have no effect on {{l|siege engine}}s.

:Like Fortifications, Vertical {{l|Bars}} and Wall {{l|Grate}} will also allow projectiles to fire through them while impeding units' movement, but these constructions provide no defense - the missile fire works both ways equally. Unlike Fortifications, Bars and Grates may be connected to a {{l|Lever}}, and opened or closed remotely - thus, they are good for forming a portcullis.

=====Doors (& Hatches)=====
:{{l|Door}}s are the simplest way to keep an enemy out. (A {{l|floor hatch}} in this sense is just a vertical door, and in all ways works the same.) Most creatures will be stopped by any door or hatch, though some others can smash them. With a little tinkering, doors can be made 3 tiles wide or more, but this remains mostly for aesthetics without much practical use, as {{l|caravan|wagons}} will still not be able to pass them. You can {{l|forbid}} doors to keep (most) hostile humanoids and creatures out, and your dwarves in.

:Additionally doors can specifically be closed only against animals, to keep beloved {{l|pet}}s from wandering into enemy fire (they may pile up at the door and use the chance to slip out with a dwarf).

:Forbidding all doors and entrances breaks the pathfinding of enemies, making them lurk at the map border where they entered, which can be quite inconvenient in the case of an invisible ambush that then rushes at your fort in just the moment your civilian dwarves move out to, say, cut trees.

=====Floodgates=====
:{{l|Floodgate}}, alone or in a line, may be used as removable walls, since they need no support and disappear when "opened" remotely, although using a wide drawbridge will be much more economical in terms of {{l|Mechanism}}s. (Be aware that {{l|Megabeast}}s can batter down both raised floodgates and drawbridges, and ''any object'' can prevent a floodgate from closing again, even a single, stray crossbow bolt or confused animal.)

:A floodgate can be used just like a door, with two differences: A floodgate can be placed next to another floodgate, unlike a door, which needs to be adjacent to a wall. A floodgate is closed by default, and can only be opened with a lever. Be careful not to trap your dwarves.

=====Moats=====
:Channeling a ditch is a fast and effective defense. However, consider that [[channeling]] has been changed from previous versions, and creating an effective moat now requires extra steps, such as designating ramp removal. The moat doesn't have to be filled with water or magma. Arguably, a dry moat is a better defense. If you want to build an access/escape route for your moat, consider where it leads - the enemy might use that too.

:A moat cuts off access for your dwarves as well, so a retractable- or drawbridge is usually included in the design. But a moat with a non-retractable bridge is still potentially useful: It keeps enemy archers away from your fortifications, and it channels enemies into a narrow and predictable path. A drawbridge without a moat can be a big remote control door, sealing an entrance when it's "up". (This doesn't work with retracting bridges.)

=====Bridges=====
:Bridges come in 3 forms - a permanent construction ''(a {{l|floor}} or top of a {{l|wall}} built out over a void)'', a retractable bridge, and a drawbridge. The movable type have a maximum size of 10x10 (including one solid "anchor" line of tiles at the base), and require a lever and two mechanisms to link them to be raised. Permanent bridges can be designed or later modified to include the latter.

:A retractable/raise-able {{l|bridge}} over a deep trench is a simple and almost air-tight defense - only flying creatures can pass it (''once the bridge is raised''). The moat keeps building-destroyers away from the bridge, and the raised bridge blocks arrow fire for anything behind it. {{l|Channel}}s may be dug to form ditches, or moats - be aware of what might exist or be planned for the next {{l|z-level}} down. For defensive purposes they do not need to be filled with anything - as in the middle ages, a dry ditch is more than enough to prevent ground units from approaching (though of course, projectiles may be launched over it with impunity). With a retracting {{l|bridge}} over the moat, any units or items on top of the bridge will be dropped into the moat (and, if the moat is filled with water, drown unless they can swim out; if it is filled with magma, they burn to death.)

:Bridges can throw creatures a distance (in a random direction) when the bridge is raised/retracted, possibly injuring them on landing. Creatures on top of drawbridges will be utterly destroyed if they are flush against wall and have a floor tile above them, as will anything, friend, foe or object, on a floor that is covered when the drawbridge is lowered. This offensive use of drawbridges is known as the {{l|Dwarven Atom Smasher|Dwarven Atom Smasher}}.

:A drawbridge works as a door when "raised", sealing the passage it raises against. Consider this, as well as security from {{l|building destroyer}}s, when choosing the direction a drawbridge is to raise.

:There are three important things to remember: 1) Always build the bridge to raise towards the ''inside'' (so it cannot be destroyed when raised), 2) the {{l|lever}} has to be pulled by a civilian or off-duty militiadwarf, not a full-time soldier, and 3) water can freeze solid in cold weather. Also, some rare creatures can cross fluids, even magma. Nothing but flying creatures can get out of a channel.

====Remote control====
:*'''Barriers'''
::If you link a {{l|lever}} to a door, hatch cover or floodgate, it becomes impossible for your dwarves to open and close it normally. Pulling the lever is the only way to open it. This keeps your dwarves locked in as well as keeping enemies out. (It's unknown if {{l|thief|thieves}} can bypass a closed door once it's linked to a lever or pressure plate.) There is often a frustrating delay between ordering a lever pulled and when a dwarf pulls it, and another shorter one between between pulling the lever and the barrier responding.

::Any item or creature in an open barrier at the moment it tries to close will not only prevent that barrier from closing, but that "close" signal will be lost. Any lever will have to be pulled twice more - to reset to "open", and then to (try to) close again. This is not the case with drawbridges, which crush anything and everything below them when they close.

:*'''Automated barriers & traps'''
::You can automate a barrier or trap by using a {{l|pressure plate}} instead of a lever, but there are complications there. Only "enemies" or wild creatures will trigger a pressure plate - your dwarves and tame animals can walk on it all day long. Also, no device, trap or barrier, can be constructed in a tile where a pressure plate is - that is the only constructed object that can be there. But with creativity, this can still be a powerful addition to your fortress defense.

===Traps===
:''Full article: {{l|Trap design}}

The most reliable way to stop intruders is lots of {{l|trap}}s, which, large or small, can become an essential part of your fortification design. A line of traps can wipe out an entire ambush, and inflict significant damage on a siege. A thief's trap avoidance is subject to chance, so the more the better. However, be aware that vast numbers of traps have the potential to take some of the {{l|fun}} and challenge out of the game - use accordingly.

There are several types of {{l|trap}}s that a {{l|mechanic}} can place in a single tile and that target a single creature, but there are larger, more complex traps that only you can design, using {{l|lever}}s or {{l|pressure plate}}s.

Note that a few creatures and enemies have the "trap avoid" token, potentially negating this defense against them.

===Military===
:''Full article: {{l|Military}}

A {{l|sparring|trained}}, {{l|weapon|armed}}, and {{l|armor|armor}}ed {{l|military}} is the only way to bring the fight to the enemy. Building defenses to keep them safe is easy - keeping military ready and in position is the tricky part.

A sufficiently large military can be used as a reactive force to rescue ambushed dwarves and safeguard the passage of caravans through unknown dangers, or even to sally out and meet a sieging force ''mano a mano''. The disadvantages are many - soldiers must physically move to the conflict zone which may be many screens away from the nearest entrance to your fortress, by which point dwarven lives may have already been lost. And while {{l|scheduling}} may make ordering an army easier, dwarves will not retreat under any circumstances, so keeping a lot of dwarves in a squad will help a lone dwarf when he picks a fight with three {{l|undead|zombie}} {{l|troglodyte}}s. At best, an army should be considered supplemental for defending dwarves outside your fortress. See {{l|military design|military design}} for different options.

===Animals===
Any animal (or dwarf) can act as a sentry - if a hidden enemy comes adjacent to them, that enemy is revealed and an {{l|announcement}} is generated and the game paused (even by wild animals!). Most animals aren't strong enough to take more than one armoured goblin warrior, and enemies with bows are even worse. The real purpose of guard animals is to spot thieves. Anything will do here, even a kitten will do the job, and some players prefer not to risk a useful animal. ''

Guard animals are a good second line of defense in open entrances after your traps. A wardog can usually tear a thief apart, and will (briefly) delay goblin warriors while you respond. Also, the death of any animal will be {{l|announcement|announced}} (but the game will not pause), alerting you to the threat if you were not already aware of it. (Note - Some {{l|tame}}d animals will not fight goblins!)''

Most enemies will go after your animals just as blindly as they attack your dwarves. An expendable chained animal can bait enemies into dangerous passages, even into places unconnected to your fortress. Such an animal chained out on the far side of the map can alert you to ambushes that start there before they threaten your local dwarves.

{{l|Restraint|Restrain}} animals in narrow corridors (width 1 or 2), or in matched pairs against the walls of 3-wide corridors, preferably in places where enemy archers can't easily fire at them.

===Siege engines===
:''Full article: {{l|Siege engine}}

Siege engines take some planning to use effectively, and have a range of about 100 tiles compared to a crossbow's 20 or so. Both catapults and ballistae can be very deadly, but both have their drawbacks -- they take time to reload and can only hit targets at the same z-level, and they are woefully inaccurate in the hands of unskilled operators or when loaded with low-quality bolts. Furthermore, they're manned by civilians, who will abandon their posts should the enemy get too close.

==Considerations==
Now you know what you might face, and what cards you have in your hand. To that we add complications, things that make defense so much {{l|fun}}...

===Surface jobs===
There are many times when dwarfs want to work on the surface. {{l|Wood cutting}}, {{l|Herbalist|gathering plants}}, {{l|hunting}}, {{l|fishing}}, {{l|mining}} exposed {{l|vein}}s or {{l|gem}}s, building defenses or other structures, {{l|grower|growing}} above-ground {{l|crop}}s, {{l|Health care|helping wounded comrades}} or recovering dropped items are only the most likely. Often they are alone and vulnerable to {{l|creature|wild beasts}} or {{l|ambush}}es.

{{l|Burrows}} are one option to handle civilian eagerness, but only {{L|squads|soldiers}} can currently be broken up by burrow - civilians are all grouped into the same category, so when you try to restrict civilians to one burrow to stop them from going outside, you should make sure they can still access the whole of your fort (especially if it's still expanding). You can try to wall in huge areas of the map, possibly with drawbridge gates that can open for caravans, but the larger the area, the vaster the project, the further your dwarves will be from existing defenses, and the more time they will spend working above ground.

Making smaller enclosures in key areas with underground tunnels leading to them can an easier first step. Likewise, tunneling to the inside of an exposed vein of ore keeps your miners sealed from the outside until you are prepared to mine the last tiles, possibly after placing doors or walls just inside that tunnel. Having military stationed or patrolling nearby is another option.

* '''Burrows''' With the advent of the new burrow system, it's very easy to set a safe place designated as an emergency burrow and restrict civilians to it. Setting that alert state when there are enemies about causes your dwarves to immediately run to the emergency burrow and stay there until the alert is turned off.

* '''Lock the front doors.'''It takes a truly airtight fortress to keep the entrance open while there are still enemies outside. If there's even one exit, your dwarves will use it. Try testing this while it's safe: Raise the bridges, just like you would in a siege, and designate some trees for cutting. If there's a way out, your woodcutters will find it.

* '''Forbid dropped equipment and corpses.''' Mark every item on the battlefield as {{l|forbidden|forbidden}}. This includes any items dropped by dead merchants or scuttled wagons. You can have this done automatically for dwarf and enemy corpses and inventories in the '''orders''' {{key|o}} menu at the '''forbid options''' {{key|F}}.

* '''Delete stockpiles and turn off tombs.''' As a preemptive measure, you can easily delete your Graveyard {{l|stockpile|stockpile}}s. Dwarves don't haul things if there's no stockpile to place them in. Turning off or removing {{l|coffin|coffin}}s stops burials as well.

* '''Keep them busy.''' Make a bunch of busy-work for your dwarves, just to keep them underground. It's not perfect but it helps. Time to re-organize your stockpiles.

===Water sources===
Access to {{l|water}} can be vital. Wounded dwarves need water, so if there's not an underground water source you'll lose valuable soldiers to thirst. Try to have a {{l|well}} or cistern your dwarves can use safely. Remember to keep an extra {{l|bucket}} or two available.

Some water sources are good locations for {{l|fishing}}, providing food during longer sieges.

===Civilians trapped outdoors===
Anything that blocks intruders will also block your dwarves. This can cause the problem of dwarves being trapped outside with the enemy, and the enemy ''will'' find them. Having more than one entrance can be useful here, but each requires adequate defenses - the weakest link and all that. If you make these entrances accessible by drawbridge only, with a (short) moat outside that, and keep the drawbridge up most of the time, having lots of entrances shouldn't be too much of a problem.

===Trade depot & caravans===
Factoring in  access to the {{l|trade depot}} adds a layer of complexity. Letting merchants in while keeping enemies out requires a careful balance. The merchants can reveal ambushes and thieves like any other creature, and they can arrive in the middle of a {{l|siege}}. If they do, they can be slaughtered before reaching your doors, and that hurts you, (as well as possibly causing your civilian dwarfs to want to go running out and collect their dropped items.) Consider sending heavily armored escorts when expecting a caravan. You will possibly want to build the depot inside your walls/defenses with retractable-/draw-{{L|bridge}}s, so you can seal an enemy out while you conduct your trading. Keeping the Depot at the center of the map also lets your dwarfs drag things to it faster, and leaves it to the caravan to do the hauling.

Although wagons have been scarce of late, the Depot Access command still works, showing three tile wide paths a caravan can take. Caravans ''still appear where those paths meet the edge of the map'', even if they have no wagons. By choosing a brook bed recessed into the ground, or building floors to block travel around the edge of the map, it is possible to keep a caravan path only a few squares wide at the edge of the board, which is completely separate from all other visitors to the map. In this way you can leave the path to your Depot open all the time with virtually no risk from sieges and random creatures unless they enter one of those few squares.



===Branching corridors===
Enemies will take the most direct path to your fortress, (even if it's not very direct at all). You can use this to your advantage. Have two paths to the fortress: a long, twisting, three-wide road, and a shorter, one tile wide, trap-filled passage. Attackers will usually prefer the short and deadly path. This makes a good line of fire for a ballista, too.

Alternately, you can have a primary, convenient, direct 3-wide path to your fortress open most of the time, with a convoluted detour that is forced (by drawbridges) only during sieges, lined with traps and overseen by marksdwarves. The possibilities are infinite.

===Levers===
Be careful where you place the {{l|lever}}s controlling your various entrances, traps and other defenses. Or any lever at all, for that matter. Make sure they are either central or close to locations of idle dwarfs, or both - near a {{l|Activity zone|meeting area}} or bedrooms of {{l|nobles}} is often a good plan. Make sure that the entire path to each lever is {{l|underground}} or your dwarves might be unable to reach them if told to stay in certain warrens (test this during peacetime!) Try putting all your defense-related levers in a single room, perhaps down a staircase from your meeting area, and put a door (or hatch) on the entrance(s). Then you can lock your lever-puller inside to ensure rapid response time.

Another solution to the problem of rapid response time is to make your lever room double as a {{l|Screw pump|pump}} room. Pumping is a good way to build up your dwarves' {{l|attribute}}s regardless of whether the pump is doing work or not. If you want a dedicated lever operator or three, turn off all their labors except pumping, and set the pumps up so that they can be operated exclusively by your dedicated lever operators. Rotate these positions every so often so the attribute gain will be distributed among multiple dwarves.

For the truly ambitious, the lever room could be spread over multiple levels, and the pumps could work together to power one or more artificial {{l|waterfall}}s. (Waterfalls work well in this case because their operation is not fortress-critical, and your dwarves like the mist they produce.)

Use Notes to label each lever and attached device and trap clearly - if you come back to a game after a week and can't remember your levers, they are useless (or, worse, dangerous!) Color code your levers with different color {{l|mechanism}}s if that works for you.

==General Suggestions==

===First concerns===

====Pre-embark decisions====
Defense starts before the game does, at embark when you're choosing your location, your dwarves' starting skill mixes, and your starting equipment and supplies. If you expect trouble (an evil biome, perhaps), then it can be crucial to bring at least one axe. Picks make decent weapons, and a dwarf with the proper mix of {{l|ambusher}} skill starts with a free equipment - a suit of leather armor, a {{l|crossbow}} and several dozen steel {{l|bolt}}s. A supply of wood means you don't have to chop trees for a while, and similarly a few simple stone (a few {{l|bauxite}} can't hurt) allows you to make immediate workshops even before your miner has swung her pick. While an untrained dwarf can usually wrestle most small and medium beasts, one unarmored (semi-)military dwarf with an axe or crossbow can be a big edge against most early threats.

For most starts, unless your embark location is very close to the mouth of an open {{l|volcano}} or you are starting in an {{l|evil}} biome ''(and that is only recommended for experienced players, so why are you reading this?)'', there should be no serious immediate threats. Unless you are at {{l|war}} with a civilization (visible on the pre-embark screen), sieges and ambushes don't start until you've created some wealth, the first winter at the earliest. So wild animals are your only concern, predators that might prey on lone dwarfs and thieving animals that will target your valuables.

====Striking the earth====
First, look around. At the terrain, at the animals present. Scan the {{k|u}} menu before un-pausing the game at the start, and regularly. More animals will enter the map, constantly and without warning, so keep an eye on visitors.

One of your first priorities is to get things underground or otherwise secure, to prevent rot but also to prevent theft. Carving out a channel/moat, or removing the slopes to a hill, or building a wall, or a combination of those will work fine, but better if you don't have an unwanted entrance to wall up later. Soil is very fast to dig out, and just as strong against enemies, but may not be desirable for a later, mature fortress. Balance convenience against your long-range plans and visible threats.

Consider and plan the entrance to your fortress - perhaps a ramp leading down, or a tunnel into the side of a hill or cliff. A long, narrow entrance (a valley and/or tunnel) allows you to control it, with archers, with traps, with a siege engine at the end. It gives you time to prepare your military. However, it also means that your dwarfs will have to walk that entire distance every time they enter and leave your fortress, and be that much further from help should they need it. Entrances vary from a few tiles to a many dozen. Start with something smaller for now, but plan on how to develop the entrance you want later.

An L-bend, or several, or drops in z-level may provide better security, or a firing platform for siege engines and/or archers. Many complex traps involve several levels beneath the entrance (for drainage of liquids or other diabolical purposes.) Using some of the principles above, it might look something like this...

#####################
(a) ? (-trap .....#
? area-) . .# (A's/SE)
################....#
# #
#D D#
# #
<Inner Fortress>
(Not to Scale)

(a) = bait animal, on {{l|restraint}}
# = tunnel walls, above-ground walls, valley walls with slopes removed, and/or channels
? = ramp up, drawbridge, moat, defensive structures, or combination of all
traps = mechanic's traps and/or complex death traps, as you wish.
....
. . = area open to sky, to prevent "dwarves staying inside" from archers outside entrance
....
D = wardog on {{l|restraint}}
(A's/SE)= future site for archers and/or {{l|siege engine}}s (planning ahead)

The above might be longer or shorter, partially or entirely above or below ground, or have more turns. The "inner fortress" might only be a Trade Depot, with another similar entryway behind that. Instead of the turn, it might drop a level and dive below the sight of the Siege Engines. Since the first caravan won't arrive for at least 6 months, you can dig a 1-tile wide tunnel for now, or a staircase, and then dig out to another location for a more formal entrance. This is only a very rough, very simple example of combining possibilities.

====It's mine!====
Consider how you will secure your valuables, your entrance, and any land you want to claim as "dwarf only" - by channeling, removing the slopes from nearby hills, maybe walls? At first, consider including at least enough above-ground terrain for any {{l|farm plot}}s and {{l|Activity zone|meeting area}}s. This could perhaps be as small as a 5x5 walled enclosure, or be multiple compounds, but some players aim at claiming (most of) the entire map. Any barrier limits your dwarfs, but keeps enemies out until you have your fortress up and running at a basic level and are prepared to respond properly. Due to thieves' ability to get past locked doors, and a caravan needing a path that's 3-wide, you won't be able to create a hard "gate" that you can open and shut until you have a {{l|mechanic's workshop}} and some {{l|mechanism|mechanism}}s for levers, to link to a {{l|drawbridge}}.

====Inside vs. outside====
Not "above ground" vs "subterranean", but the border where the inside of your fortress starts, what you claim as "yours" vs "out there". Some fortresses just have one main gate, some try to own the entire map. Some have an "airlock", a middle ground (remembering multiple, layered defenses!) where a Trade Depot is kept, that visitors can access and is protected, but then a deeper, even more secure inner fortress - think of a castle courtyard - inside the walls but not yet inside the castle itself. A safe zone for friends, still unfriendly for enemies but taking extra precautions against full intrusion.

This can be above ground or deep underground, a direct line or a maze of z-levels - that's all up to you, how much work you think "security" is worth. Hey, it's not like ''you'' have to do the heavy lifting.

That line of defense - any line - can be passive (walls and barriers and traps only) or active, with military, either on permanent duty or with stations to report to when activated. Remote controlled bridges create movable walls and closed gates or open hidden moats to reroute visitors, enemies and/or your dwarves depending on the situation, so there is no one "configuration", but several different options all side by side.

====Mechanic's traps====
Traps are a good friend for the starting player. We're talking the simple traps that a mechanic places - complex death traps are up to you. Stone traps are a good start - they're easy, effective against all but the biggest creatures, and ammo is plentiful if you're mining in stone. When goblins show, they can number less than a dozen to start, but grow over time. Start with a row in an early chokepoint, maybe your entry hall or outside it, make that one row into a few, and go from there. But lead your target - count on the next attack being larger than the last.

If you want to breed monkeys for skin, bone and meat, or amuse yourself with live goblins, a row or five of cage traps at the very entrance of your fort would be a good start. Leave room for this when you place your stone traps - killing the monkeys first won't allow live monkeys to be caged. (You still get the meat & etc from those corpses, just not breeding stock.)

As your dwarfs creates weapons, as you trade for them, or (later) as you gather those of your fallen enemies, {{l|Trap|weapon traps}} will become attractive. There is no hard rule or formula for all this - be creative.

====Complex traps====
Between levers, pressure plates, water and magma, much fun can be had. But this article won't deal with any specifics. (See {{l|Trap design}} for those.) We will say - plan ahead. Think about what you might want to do, and leave ample room for it, in all 3 dimensions.

====Military====
To start, you will probably have few if any full-time military standing guard over your dwarfs - there is just too much to do at first, and serious threats are (hopefully) several seasons away. If you are going to make weapons and armor, have stockpiles near where your draftees work and rest, perhaps near an entrance/exit, but not so close that it might get over-run before your dwarfs can equip. Eventually you might have perhaps a quarter (or more or less) of your dwarfs as full-time military, and they'll need a barracks where they will sleep and practice, archery ranges if that's their weapon of choice, and quick, safe routes to their battle stations or patrol areas. When to begin a full-time military presence is personal choice and influenced by your game situation, but plan on eventually having them live and practice near where they will be fighting as much as possible. See {{l|Military design}} for a more complete discussion on planning and deploying military and militia.

==Different philosophies==
There are many, ''many'' ways to play DF. Some players play hard and tight, and some fast and loose. Some take no risks and protect every last dwarf and cat, and others happily leave a highway of dwarf and animal bodies for the next immigration wave to follow. Some live for the slaughter of ascii goblins, and others for the mega-project. No one "defense" will serve everyone's tastes.

===Losing is fun===
There is no final "win" in Dwarf Fortress, no end point or Easter egg that says "Congratulations!" - it just keeps going, until, inevitably and unavoidably, you will lose. That's part of the game. So it's all about how you play until then, and finding your type of fun in that process.

==="Fun" vs. security===
It's not hard to create an acre of traps that, realistically, simply no threats can survive. If you want to pursue a megaproject (that is not a defensive trap) in peace and security, this may be a good plan. However, if you look forward to the military end of things, then you want to allow, or at least be able to invite combat at your choosing. New players are recommended to use the hall-of-traps entryway, at least to start. Many experienced players challenge themselves by limiting their use of simple traps, or other voluntary handicaps. It's all about what you think is {{l|fun}}.

----
'''See also:
:*{{l|Siege engine}}

{{Category|Guides}}
{{Category|Fortress defense}}
{{Category|World}}
{{Category|Design}}

{{Military v0.31}}

v0.31:Sasquatch

2010-07-12T23:49:53Z

Dudemcman:

{{Quality|Fine|07:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)}}
{{CreatureInfo v0.31
|name=Sasquatch
|symbol=S|color=6:0:0
|biome=
* {{L|Forest|Temperate forest}}
* {{L|Taiga}}
|wiki=Bigfoot
|contrib=no
|valm=3
|bones=39
|meat=40
|fat=25
|skulls=1
|skin=hide
|eyes=2
|lung=2
|heart=1
|intestines=1
|liver=1
|tripe=1
|sweetbread=1
|spleen=1
|kidney=2
|brain=1
|hoofs=1 (Nail)
}}
{{av}}

:''A large and mysterious ape-like creature found in temperate forests.''

'''Sasquatches''' are medium to large animals, weighing 7.5 times as much as the average adult dwarf upon maturity. They are also able to equip {{L|weapons}} and {{L|armor}} and open unforbidden {{L|door}}s.

Sasquatches coded with the {[BUILDINGDESTROYER:#] token|destroy buildings}}, so watch for out-side {{L|Trading|trading depot}}s not protected by {{L|wall}}s.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Animals}}

v0.31:Sasquatch

2010-07-12T23:49:04Z

Dudemcman:

{{Quality|Fine|07:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)}}
{{CreatureInfo v0.31
|name=Sasquatch
|symbol=S|color=6:0:0
|biome=
* {{L|Forest|Temperate forest}}
* {{L|Taiga}}
|wiki=Bigfoot
|contrib=no
|valm=3
|bones=39
|meat=40
|fat=25
|skulls=1
|skin=hide
|eyes=2
|lung=2
|heart=1
|intestines=1
|liver=1
|tripe=1
|sweetbread=1
|spleen=1
|kidney=2
|brain=1
|hoofs=1 (Nail)
}}
{{av}}

:''A large and mysterious ape-like creature found in temperate forests.''

'''Sasquatches''' are medium to large animals, weighing 7.5 times as much as the average adult dwarf upon maturity. They are also able to equip {{L|weapons}} and {{L|armor}} and open unforbidden {{L|door}}s.

Sasquatches coded with the {{L|[BUILDINGDESTROYER:#] token|destroy buildings}}, so watch for out-side {{L|Trading|trading depot}}s not protected by {{L|wall}}s.

{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Animals}}

User:Dudemcman

2010-07-12T23:45:55Z

Dudemcman:

I play Dwarf Fortress on ubuntu via wine. If you have any compatibility problems, pm me.

v0.31:Losing

2010-06-05T18:08:57Z

Dudemcman:

{{Quality|Exceptional}}
{{av}}

Losing is fun!

Either way, it keeps you busy.

There is no internal end point or single goal or final Easter egg or "You Win!" announcement in Dwarf Fortress. Therefore, eventually, almost every fortress will fall. The only ones that tend to be very conservative and very boring - and what fun is that? Therefore, fun = losing, losing = fun, DF = losing = fun, and that's okay! It's a game philosophy, so embrace it, own it, and have ''fun'' with it!

Most new players will lose their first few forts earlier than later; <s>if</s> when you lose a {{l|fortress}}, don't feel like you don't understand the game. Dwarf Fortress has a steep learning curve, and part of the process (and fun!) is discovering things for yourself. However, this Wiki serves as an excellent place to speed up the learning process.

If you lose, you can always {{l|reclaim fortress mode|reclaim fortress}} or go visit it in {{l|adventurer mode}}.

If you're looking for more ways to <s>die horribly</s> test yourself, try either the {{l|mega construction}} or the {{l|Challenges}} articles.

== Autopsy ==

Various common things can cause the death of a fortress. Let's examine some together...

===Local Wildlife===
Goblins aren't the only creatures that want you dead. The obvious threats aside, some {{L|creature}}s with benign names or descriptions can be surprisingly deadly. A sudden wildlife attack can quickly cripple or destroy an unprepared fortress. Before you unpause a new game for the first time, hit {{k|u}}nits, and scroll down to see what's sharing your map. Learn to do this regularly - new creatures will frequently migrate onto your map and then off again to be replaced by others.

Consider arming up and thinning out any predictable threats.

===Underground Life===
Underground life can be even more dangerous than surface life. Dig through a cavern, and expect hordes of animalmen and other cave creatures to invade your fortress. Unlike wildlife, these creatures never migrate off. Arming up helps a lot, as there really is only a small entrance they can get in by.

===No Food===

A serious danger, generally in the more inhospitable {{L|climate}}s, is the loss of your {{L|dwarf|dwarves}} due to starvation. As dwarves begin to starve, they will become {{L|hungry}}, then {{L|starving}}. This will cause them first to slow down all work, and then to become very {{L|unhappy}}. When they die, their friends will become upset and will become even more unhappy, potentially causing the remainder of your fortress to break out in a {{L|tantrum spiral|terminal hissy fit}}.

Don't forget your alternative sources of {{L|food}}. If your {{L|farm}}s aren't doing the job and a {{L|caravan|trade caravan}} is months away, try {{L|butchering}} your {{L|domestic animal}}s, {{L|plant gathering|gathering plants}}, or resorting to {{L|hunting}} of local wildlife.

===No Booze===
Equally as bad is no {{L|alcohol}}, which dwarves ''require'' to be happy and productive. Some alcohol can be acquired from {{L|caravan}}s, but not enough for an entire fort until the next caravan arrives. You must {{L|farm}} plants to then {{L|brew}} those in a {{L|still}} with an empty {{L|barrel}} - it's just part of being a dwarf.

===No water===

Healthy dwarves will not die of thirst as long as they have alcohol, which in the current version can be {{L|Brewing|brewed}} without the use of water. However, injured dwarves must be given water, not alcohol, or they will die of dehydration.

{{L|Rain}} will refill stagnant {{L|pool}}s of water slowly. In a hot {{L|climate}}, this may evaporate almost immediately. What's more, if the map is in a dry {{L|climate}}, such as a desert (hot or cold), then there can be long periods of time with no water anywhere - in extreme cases, none ever. Snow will not refill pools, so you can also have a lack of water in very cold {{L|climate}}s. Also, if weather has been turned off in the {{L|init.txt}} file then there will be no rain and no water will accumulate, though it may be there at the beginning of the game.

If all else fails, the {{L|caverns}} are bound to contain water somewhere, so you can put down a {{L|well}}. Watch out for {{L|Giant toad|other}} [[:Category:DF2010:Humanoids|sources]] {{L|Cave crocodile|of fun.}}

===Flooding accidents (aka "too much water")===

The opposite side of the dehydration spectrum is having too ''much'' water. Remember that water can {{L|flow}} in 10 directions (the 8 horizontal ones as well as up and down, to the level of its source.)

If your fortress is beginning to flood from {{L|Water#Sourced Water|sourced water}}, abandon all of the levels the water can reach immediately—creating a civilian alert and ordering your dwarves to a burrow upstairs. You will never be able to recover those areas unless you can manage to {{L|pump}} out the water faster than it floods in, which can take over a year or two of game time to establish a functioning automated pump system. Generally, a flooding accident spells doom for your fortress.

Sometimes, a fortress is flooded with {{L|magma}}. This is even more {{L|fun}}, and even harder to recover from. Any shut door will stop magma, it doesn't rise as aggressively (via {{L|pressure}}) as water, and magma can be {{L|pump}}ed out with the right equipment. Read up on it. Good luck.

=== Inability to mine (aka "no picks") ===

aka Diggor Mortis.

Diggor Mortis: ''when a Dorf with a pickaxe decides that digging where they shouldn't is a bloody good idea.''

Simply put, you need {{L|pick}}s to mine {{L|ore}}, which is then {{L|smelt}}ed to make {{L|metal}} for items like more picks. If you are careless (or ignorant) of how to dig safely, and your {{L|miner}}s create a {{L|cave-in|collapse}} or flood and their equipment gets lost/destroyed/unrecoverable, ''and'' you have no materials to make more picks, you will be at a severe handicap until the problem is solved. Any dwarf can be given the {{L|mining}} {{L|labor}}, but without a pick they can do nothing. There is no way to get new metals or stone for any purpose nor any way to dig new rooms/tunnels unless you have picks.

If you have {{L|ore}} or {{L|bar}}s to create a {{L|weapons-grade}} metal, and a {{L|forge}} (and {{L|smelter}} if you need one), you can create new picks and continue. You might get lucky with a dwarven {{L|caravan}} - elves and humans don't (ever?) offer picks. If the first dwarven caravan doesn't bring any, you can try to keep your fortress running long enough to request additional {{L|pick}}s from your Outpost {{L|Liaison}}, who will arrive with the next dwarven trade {{L|caravan}} in a year. Or you can {{L|abandon}} and try again.

If you have {{L|axe}}s and {{L|tree}}s available, then you can build {{L|construction|structure}}s, {{L|building}}s and {{L|furniture}} of {{L|wood}}, which is something.

Averting this fate is simple: stockpile at least one additional pick at the first possible opportunity, or some of the {{L|weapons-grade|raw material}} to make more, and away from current digging operations.

See also: {{L|Make your own weapons}}

===General Unhappiness===

Think it's no big deal to leave your dwarves with a mediocre {{L|dining room}}, no-{{L|quality}} bed and a generally inadequate fortress?

If there is little in a fortress to give your dwarves happy {{L|thoughts}} and enough to give them unhappy {{L|thoughts}}, then your dwarves will start to throw {{L|tantrum}}s, grow melancholy, and/or cause general chaos. In extreme (but sadly not ''rare'') examples, this can lead to a {{L|tantrum spiral}} and the loss of the entire fortress. Unhappiness is more likely to occur if your fortress is suffering other kinds of downfall, so try to keep all the bases covered.

Another problem is if you don't have a justice system in place at the time of a spiral and manage to recover. If you later implement the justice system, the hammer may kill the former tantrum throwers, starting another tantrum because of their deaths.

===Ambush===
Goblin and elven ambushes alike will charge into your fortress after they are discovered. They still retreat after suffering enough casualties. Goblins still arrive with caravans, and elves can attack at any time. Even if your dwarves do not venture onto the surface, caravans will eventually trigger the ambushes.

See Also:
:* {{L|Defense guide}}
:* {{L|Defense design}}
:* {{L|Trap design}}
:* {{L|Military design}}

===War===
(as above)

===Siege===
{{L|Siege}}s can be quite devastating to a fortress, but unlike most of the other ways of losing they are unlikely to occur early on, even if you do something stupid to piss off another civilization.

Should hosts of goblins besiege your gates and drive your peasantry inside, trolls beat down your doors and force you to seal off from the outside world, you may have already lost the game. Even if you have built an utterly impenetrable fortress with drawbridges and moats, siegers may stick around for a long time. Although a dwarven fortress can be made self-contained, with {{L|list of crops|crops}}, {{L|metal}} and {{L|fuel}} readily available, underground {{L|tree farm|wood source}} and your own {{L|livestock}}, a fortress may not sustain such a state indefinitely. For example, {{L|trade}} with the outside world has now been shut off, leaving you only what {{L|ore}}s are on your map for the production of mandate goods. In the (very) long run even those will run out. This can result in a breakdown of social order if you do not prevent your {{L|Hammerer}} from killing or maiming your dwarves. {{L|Shell}}, {{L|bone}}, and {{L|leather}} commonly acquired by {{L|hunting}} and {{L|fishing}} need to be supplied by previously established livestock and access to suitable water. If these resources are no longer available to your workers, moody {{L|craftsdwarf|craftsdwarves}} will be driven into suicide or worse. Rotten {{L|vermin}} {{L|corpse}}s begin to heap in your food supply, forcing you to dump these into inside {{L|refuse|refuse pile}}s, generating {{L|miasma}}. Unless an {{L|well|interior watersupply}} was established your wounded will die of dehydration.

With all these critical industries unproductive, dwarves dying, and friends mourning over the rotting heaps of slain loved ones, it's important to remember your dwarves have nothing to do but throw funeral receptions, grief counseling sessions, and the occasional keg stand. This means they've all become one big happy family of friends, manically depressed from the loss of any dwarf.

In short, the attacking army can simply wait until your dwarves emo themselves to death.

===HFS===
''(Hidden Fun Stuff)''

If you don't want {{L|Hidden Fun Stuff|spoilers}}, trust us: you'll ''know'' when you've found it.

{{Category|Guides}}

User:Dudemcman

2010-06-01T20:09:05Z

Dudemcman: Created page with 'I play maydays version of Dwarf Fortress 31.03 on ubuntu via wine.'

I play maydays version of Dwarf Fortress 31.03 on ubuntu via wine.

v0.31 Talk:Miner

2010-06-01T20:07:35Z

Dudemcman: /* Ghost Miner? */ new section

v0.31 Talk:Health care

2010-06-01T18:26:46Z

Dudemcman: /* Two dwarves in one bed? */ new section

Moved page to df2010, as it shouldn't be in mainspace [[User:Emi|Emi]] 02:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

== Rest to death ==

Be aware that once you have a hospital zone defined - all your injured dwarves will immediately run there at top speed and start to "Rest" there. "Rest" job can not be interrupted by any other job because a resting dwarf gains "unconscious" state. If you have no uninjured dwarves to bring food and water all patients will eventually get thirsty and dehydratate to death. Insanity breaks the "rest" job and the mad dwarf will wake up and wander around but it isn't helping.

If all your dwarves are injured to some extent - don't designate hospital zones.

== Starving to death in the hospital? ==

I had a few injured dwarves; they ended up starving to death in the hospital while a surgeon tried to perform surgery. Do I need to put food stockpiles in the hospital? Does it need a well? --[[User:Bombcar|Bombcar]] 16:46, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
:Were all your other dwarves busy? As "bring food/water to injured" is like a well job and will only occur when no other order is deemed more important.[[User:Kenji 03|Kenji 03]] 11:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

== Nearby pond/pool of water ==

I think it's very important to make note that a pond or pool be located inside or at least in a room adjacent to the hospital. See my user page if you want details, but the basics is that doctors (and possibly other dwarves) will run to the nearest water source to clean an injured/resting dwarf if they're dirty/muddy/bloody/whatever. The problem is both sieges and distance. During a siege, your doctor's going to get killed, plain and simple. Yeah, other dwarves will get killed bringing water to dwarves, too, so it's important anyway. Another thing is distance. Say you have a bloody dwarf with a badly dented chest, and another dwarf with a mangled, broken head gushing blood. For whatever reason, your doctor decides to diagnose Urist McDentedChest first. The next course of action is cleaning. Your doctor then grabs the nearest bucket from your hospital coffers, runs up the stairs to the nearest murky pool, brook, or river and halfway back to the fortress gate, UristMcGushingBloodOutHisHeadHemmorage bleeds to death.

On another note, dwarves do seem to clot very well now compared to old 40d. UristMcGushingHead in my fort has stopped bleeding, and even gone from extreme pain to faint to pale, and now he's back to only fainting, but if you go into battle with multiple wounded dwarves, you're going to have your doctors making multiple runs outside. Inside water needs to be made an important point. With the irrigation technique required at the moment, it shouldn't be too hard to explain since a similar technique is used. --[[User:Ryun|Ryun]] 21:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Would a well suffice?

::It should, but I have not yet gotten to the point of making a well so I can't say I've tested it. With the abundance of underground pools, it shouldn't be difficult to make. I had suggested a pool initially because they would be easy to set up (except a little difficult to get full) for a new fort. I assume they should, anyhow. Once I bend my head around the technique of getting down to those pools multiple z-levels below, I'll test it.

::After several stupid mining errors ("Let's use the channel ramps to mine instead of digging out the topmost staircase and get stuck forever!") it appears that wells do indeed work for supplying dwarves water. However, I would like a recommendation that the hospital is put on the z-level as closest as possible to an underground pool if that is the water source. Dwarves take a fairly long time to get water when the distance the bucket must travel exceeds greater than 3 z-levels. Prep with multiple wells as well, of course, especially if you must place the well a long distance from the water source.--[[User:Ryun|Ryun]] 22:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

::I chose to run stream water down to my hospital. I channeled out a cistern one level deeper than the hospital level, connected ''diagonally'' to a shaft that ran to the stream. The [[DF2010:Pressure#Diagonal_Flow|diagonal connection]] kills the water pressure. I crossed my fingers, channeled out the last tile connecting the shaft to the stream, and it worked perfectly, so I permitted use of the door to the cistern. (I've not flooded a fort since the Second Magma Incident of 2007.) —[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 06:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

:::A well works fine. Sadly my dwarves don't use my bewdiful balineae right across from the hospital to fill buckets. Maybe because of all the soap in the water. (Okay, I'll be honest, never seen a dwarf with soap there, but they do get nice thougts from 'having a bath') --[[User:Old Ancient|Old Ancient]] 20:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

== Traction bench bug? ==

My medical dwarves seem unable to move patients onto the traction bench. I've seen mine spend most of a year on "Place In Traction", standing over the victim, not accomplishing anything. --[[User:DarthCloakedDwarf|DarthCloakedDwarf]] 05:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
:I cannot confirm, for I have not even seen any of my hospital workers (with surgery enabled) use the things, and all the wounded recover just fine, regardless. --[[User:Bronzebeard|Bronzebeard]] 00:11, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
::i had the same "place on traction bench" problem; my doctor was stood over the patient for what seemed like an eternity with that job description, but nothing was happening. as he started to starve himself, i removed the traction bench and he went to get some grub. i then tried the bench in a different position (away from any walls), but that didnt work either; had the same job, both in the same positions, but nothing was happening... i've ended up just scrapping the traction bench altogether, and have had no problems since :]--[[User:DJ Devil|DJ Devil]] 02:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

== * Dwarves without a depot will steal hospital items and store them once a trade caravan arrives. ==

what does this mean?

:I guess it refers to the more general bug of dwarves not respecting property of caravans in some situations; supposedly they will steal food and booze if thers none in the fortress piles and they r hungry. So in this case they try to fulfill the thread, cloth and so on requests, ordered in the hospital H menu. Haven't encountered this myself though. --[[Special:Contributions/92.202.18.240|92.202.18.240]] 20:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

== Surgery bugged? ==

It worked fine for me: it took a heckuva long time because my surgeon was incompetent; several surgery jobs and some ancillary damage later, rediagnosis - no more surgery required! So it looks like a bad surgeon will take lots of attempts to get there but will eventually succeed. [[User:Soundandfury|soundandfury]] 22:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

== Hospital beds ==
I had a soldier who required suturing and since suturing is bugged, he never healed. Despite doing his duty and fighting, he kept returning to the hospital, showing rest instead of sleep, racking up bad thoughts from not being in his room and bed and possibly didn't even eat or drink, only getting what others brought him. So I thought, meh, remove the beds. this made him sleep on the floor in the hospital. So eventually I removed the hospital and in no time he is back to ecstatic, sleeping in his room, eating in the hall, making new friends, taking a bath. His wound and the suture and dressing requests are still there and are performed (to no avail) in his room.

My recommendation for now (31.04 should fix some hospital bugs): Don't have a hospital and first check if doctors work fine without it. --[[Special:Contributions/92.202.10.116|92.202.10.116]]

='Clean Patient'=
what labour relates to this? ..awh, he just died of infection.. but for future use, does anyone know? is it an automatic part of the diagnosis progress, done by the diagnostician? is it done by anyone with a healthcare skill? and can we have the answer on the page, please?--[[User:DJ Devil|DJ Devil]] 19:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
: It makes sense that wound dressing wound be part of this, but you'd have to check, it might just be cleaning skill. Ya need soap btw. [[Special:Contributions/71.134.230.146|71.134.230.146]] 04:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
::'need' is such a false word. it's not 'need'-ed. it just helps fight infection, so i'm told. i still havent made any, though :p nor plan on it. ^-^ and i think it's part of the diagnosis progress, but i've not had much injury of late, and i only have one specialised doctor with all the relative labours enabled, so my guess is as good as anyone's ^-^ i shall change some labours during the next megabeast attack and try to pin it to one of them (or all of them?)--[[User:DJ Devil|DJ Devil]] 02:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

== Two dwarves in one bed? ==

I was trying to ignore all the injured dwarves in my fortress for awhile, but it wasnt doing to well for me, so i opened a hospital. then 2 dwarves immediatly went (as patients)and started resting in the same bed. what the deuce?

v0.31:Scheduling

2010-06-01T18:08:38Z

Dudemcman: /* Schedules */

{{AV}}
{{Quality|Masterwork}}

No matter how much you micromanage your '''{{l|military}}''', your '''{{l|squads}}''' won't be able to get stronger or protect you from ambushes without proper scheduling practices. With practice, you'll be able to set your '''{{l|soldier}}s''' to follow a complicated annual training regimen, patrol major trade routes, defend important areas, or any combination of these... all with the flick of a few keys.

For quick reference: from the main menu the '''military''' screen is accessible through the {{k|m}} key, the '''points/routes/notes''' screen is accessible through the {{k|N}} key, the '''burrows''' screen is accessible through the {{k|w}} key, and the '''squads''' screen is accessible through the {{k|s}} key. The military screen and all its tabs are mouse-compatible, and can be navigated through mouse clicks rather than strictly keys (when in windowed mode).

=Passive Defense=

The new '''alert level''' and '''scheduling''' system is a new feature that is both incredibly versatile... and, initially, completely impenetrable. Once you learn the system, though, you will find that you barely need to manage your military at all. Effectively, a schedule is programming for a squad to follow within an alert, broken up by month, and alerts can be quickly and easily swapped in order to apply different schedules of your choosing to different squads of your choosing.

It is now possible to give your squads different monthly schedules, create different alert levels which will cause squads to follow out new user-programmed instructions depending on circumstance, give direct orders to attack one or more specific targets or move to a specific location, or follow patrol routes and stations with greater accuracy. The entire system (including alert names) is completely configurable, and in time you will find yourself using complicated scheduling to rotate squads between training and defending/patrolling specified areas over the course of a year without any user input, or to start defending the fort entrance or trader route with a few easy key presses.

There is now a clear discrepancy between ''active'' orders and ''passiv''e orders-- the latter is programming that a dwarf will follow to the letter and acts more as a defense method, and the former is used for taking the fight to the enemy. The ''squads'' menu is predominantly used for active commands, and the ''alert'' and ''scheduling'' menus are used for passive commands. This article will focus on the '''passive''' commands you can leave your squads to follow.

For more information on '''active''' commands, see '''{{l|Squads}}'''.

==Alert Levels==

The '''alert level''' is a new and fundamental concept of passive military management. In each alert level, you can program instructions for your military and/or civilian dwarves to follow. The game contains two alert levels by default - 'Inactive' and 'Active/Train'. In 'Inactive', all squads are assigned no orders. In 'Active/Train', all squads are supposed to be assigned to train the entire year, however due to a bug they will idle or work as civilians instead. By default, your squads will all be set to 'Inactive', which actually works the way 'Active/Train' was supposed to, causing your Dwarves to train if you have a barracks set up for it.{{version|0.31.01}} You will need to make more alerts if you want them to do anything more complicated than this.

Your entire fortress is always set to exactly one ''civilian alert level''. This restricts where civilians, any non-military dwarf in the entire fort, may go. To define the restriction area, you must first create a {{l|burrow}} encompassing the area you want to restrict your civilians to. Then, go to the alert screen ({{k|a}} in the {{k|m}}ilitary screen), {{k|c}}reate a new alert level (you can {{k|N}}ame it something like 'Danger'), highlight it in the left pane, then press enter on the correct burrow in the rightmost pane. Multiple burrows may be selected. Note that burrow restriction replaces the 'Dwarves may/may not go outside' order that was in the older versions. If you intend on having your Dwarves stay inside at any time, for any reason, you will need to create a burrow.

Individual squads can be set to a certain alert by highlighting the appropriate alert level, then selecting the correct squad in the central pane and pressing {{k|enter}}. You can also select a squad's alert level by pressing {{k|s}} to open the squads menu, {{k|a}} to select a squad, and {{k|t}} to scroll through alerts. You can change the currently active civilian alert level by pressing {{k|enter}} while the correct alert level is highlighted. Squads and civilians can only be set to one alert level at a time, so selecting one alert level for a group removes them from the former alert.

The main reason you want to use civilian alerts is to enforce {{l|burrow}} restrictions... ie making sure that your civilian Dwarves do not wander outside in the middle of a siege. It can also be used to switch the areas where Dwarves live and work around on a monthly basis, if you are so inclined.

==Schedules==

Each squad can be given multiple '''schedules''' to follow for an entire year, broken up by month. Each squad has a separate schedule for each alert level; it can be swapped between these schedules with the procedure outlined in the previous section. Without scheduling, alert levels would do nothing; without alert levels scheduling would be horribly inefficient; the two functions co-exist and rely on each other. The scheduling screen can be accessed by pressing {{k|s}} in the {{k|m}}ilitary screen.

On the main scheduling page you will see a list of months on the left side and a list of all of the squads in your fortress along the top edge. Scheduling is done separately for each alert level; to switch between alert levels use the secondary page up/down keys (by default {{k|/}} and {{k|*}}). You can use the secondary up/down keys (by default {{k|+}} and {{k|-}}) to scroll through the squads at the top if you have more than will fit on one screen. Use the up/down arrow keys to navigate the month list, and the left/right arrow keys to navigate between squads. The orders in the currently selected cell are displayed in blue towards the bottom of the screen.

When you've highlighted a cell, press {{k|tab}} to switch focus to this '''order list'''. From here, you can press {{k|e}} to edit the standing orders or {{k|o}} to give a new one. Both will open to the Give Orders screen. Pressing {{k|o}} will scroll through and change the order type. This cycles between 'Train', 'Defend Burrow', 'Patrol Route', and 'Station'. To use any of the orders other than Train, you will first need to set up the appropriate {{L|burrow}}, station, or route. When you cycle to the order you want, highlight the burrow, station, or route you want the order to go to (in the left pane) and press {{k|enter}}. It should now be highlighted in green.

Orders have a soldier-based '''order criteria''' that lists how many soldiers in the squad will follow the order at once. Using the secondary up/down keys you can choose how many soldiers must be in a squad the order applies; by default this number is ten. You can also select specific positions within the squad in the right pane to set those positions as 'preferred' - the order will try pick these dwarves to follow the orders if there are multiple off-duty dwarves to choose from. When you are done, press {{k|shift}}+{{k|enter}} to save the order and return to the schedule screen. If desired, multiple order criteria can be set for each month.

Note that the text displayed on each cell (like 'Train') is a completely customized text; it does NOT reflect the actual orders in the cell! When you have a cell highlighted, you can press 'n' to edit the label. Don't be confused by the fact that when you edit the orders in a cell, the label does not change to reflect your changes. You need to update the cell text yourself to be consistent with the orders.

To eliminate some of the tedium in scheduling many months, you can copy-paste orders from one cell to another with the {{k|c}} and {{k|p}} keys. Press {{k|c}} in the cell you want to copy from, then go to the cells you want to paste to and press {{k|p}} in each one.

By pressing {{k|shift}}+{{k|tab}} in the scheduling screen, you can flip the display of the rows and columns in the main grid. This allows you to see more squads, but fewer months. This can be useful if you want to see all your squads at the cost of not seeing the entire year's schedule. This change is cosmetic only; the tools still work the same way.

'''Warning:''' Dwarves who are permanently on-duty with no downtime have been observed to begin to starve themselves keeping to the rigorous schedule, and thus grow unhappy. Do you really want to find out how much damage that practice spear can do? To allow some of your dwarves to go sleeping when they need, you need to lower the minimum number of dwarves of the squad that need to follow the current order at any time in the order criteria as listed above. You want the criteria to be at least one or two dwarves less than the current number of dwarves in your squad. This will change the limit for the current month only, so use the copy/paste feature to update every month.{{version|0.31.01}}

'''More Warning:''' When using a rotation schedule as describe in the warning above, military dwarves that have no civilian skills, and possibly also civilian dwarves who do not have any military skills can generate bad thoughts with disturbing frequency caused by them frequently going on and off duty from monthly rotations. To avoid this problem it may be a good idea to cross train all your militia with at least one level in a civilian skill.{{version|0.31.01}}

==Orders==

:''If you were redirected here while looking for information on moving your squads to a certain point on command, you may be looking for the {{l|Squads#Selecting_Squads.2FSoldiers|squad movement}} section on the {{l|squads}} page.

The five types of scheduling orders are listed below:

===Inactive / no order===

When dwarves have an empty spot in their schedule, dwarves with good self-discipline will visit the barracks and train themselves in their spare time - if you see a dwarf doing "Individual training" when they're free, that's what's happening. Technically this is not an order applicable in the 'Give Orders' screen - it is a ''lack'' of an order.

Currently this appears to be the ''only'' way your dwarves will properly train.

===Training===
'''Note: Due to a bug Dwarves will ''not'' train if they are set to train using this option. If you want your Dwarves to train, see the above section! This section merely explains how training works, not how the passive 'Train' command works (because it doesn't).''' {{version|0.31.01}}

For your dwarves to train a '''{{l|barracks}}''' must be designated. This can be done through using {{k|q}} to examine an appropriate building and assigning it as a barracks. Previously only beds, armor stands, and weapon racks could be designated as barracks, but many storage objects are now eligible. There is a new 'Position' option that allows you to assign specific beds/storage to specific dwarves. If dwarves aren't assigned anything in particular they'll just use whatever they feel like, as per normal.

When being viewed, barracks can now be {{k|n}}amed, used for {{k|s}}leeping, {{k|t}}raining, or {{k|i}}ndiv eq. and {{k|s}}quad eq. You can choose if a squad trains in one place and sleeps in another, or in multiple, and so on. Multiple squads can overlap with one barracks. It is assumed that indiv. eq and squad eq refer to individual and squad equipment respectively, meaning that the Dwarves will store their equipment in this barracks if given the option. Likely, the indiv. eq option will make Dwarves store their personal belongings in the selected barracks, while the squad eq option will store equipment designated for that squad when it's not in use. {{verify}}

To get marksdwarves to train in any way other then bashing each other with their crossbows, they must have quivers and an archery range. Archers will no longer fire bolts without a quiver to store them in (ie. they will not hold a single stack in their hand). The archery range that is set up for the squad via building an archery target and listing it as a {{k|t}}raining area for that squad.

When dwarves are being ordered to train, squad leaders will set up training classes for particular skills, or they will have dwarves spar. Any dwarves in the squad that don't qualify for these will default to individual training. In the current release, training classes are bugged where if a squad leader sets up a training class, he will wait forever (Or until you change his orders) for students, even if nobody shows up. Likewise, if students decide to request a class and the squad leader is doing individual training, they will wait for him to finish, even if they start starving. Thus, at the moment it's best to alternate your forced training schedules with downtime so the longest a dwarf will be stuck waiting is a game month (Which isn't long enough to die), or just leave them off duty all the time and have them do individual training only, at least until this issue is fixed.

===Defend Burrows===

After a {{l|burrow}} has been created in the {{k|w}} menu, you can order your dwarves to defend it. If an enemy enters the burrow (and is not hiding) the assigned squads will be alerted and attack it. It is unknown if a soldier defending a burrow is limited to his line-of-sight or is simply aware that an enemy is present. 

===Stations===

Stations are set in the {{k|N}}otes menu. Simply {{k|p}}lace a point where you want a squad to stand, give it a {{k|n}}ame if you want to be able to find it quickly, then open the scheduling menu and set your chosen squad to be Stationed and select the station you want.

===Routes===

Routes are made by combining stations. Once you have stations set along your desired route (at least two stations are necessary), hit {{k|r}}outes while in the {{k|N}}otes menu. {{k|a}}dd a route, {{k|n}}ame it something appropriate, then {{k|e}}dit its waypoints. You need to {{k|a}}dd the points in the same order you want the dwarves to follow. They'll loop back to the initial point when they reach the last one. Waypoints can no longer be made on the fly; only stations can be selected as waypoints.

==Instructors and Demonstrations==

The leader of the squad, either a milita commander, or captain, will lead the group during a {{l|sparring|training}} session. This can be in the form of a demonstration.

=Frequently Asked Questions=

''Full article: {{l|Military_F.A.Q.|Military F.A.Q.}}''

{{Military v0.31}}

v0.31:Sasquatch

2010-05-31T23:36:32Z

Dudemcman:

{{CreatureInfo v0.31|name=Sasquatch|symbol=S|color=6:0:0|bones=39|meat=40|fat=25|skulls=1|skin=Yes|hair=1|prepared eyes=2|cartilage=1|prepared lungs=2|prepared hearts=1|prepared intestines=1|chopped liver=1|tripe=1|sweetbread=1|prepared spleens=1|prepared kidneys=2|nervous tissue=1|prepared brains=1|Nail=1|biome=
* {{L|Temperate}} {{L|forest}}
* {{L|Taiga}}
|wiki=no

}}
{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}

:''A large and mysterious ape-like creature found in temperate forests.''

Ability to destroy buildings, so watch for out-side [[trading depot]]s.
{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Animals}}

v0.31:Sasquatch

2010-05-31T23:27:21Z

Dudemcman:

{{CreatureInfo v0.31
|name=Sasquatch
|symbol=S
|color=6:0:0
|biome=
* {{L|Temperate}} {{L|forest}}
* {{L|Taiga}}
|wiki=no

}}
{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}

:''A large and mysterious ape-like creature found in temperate forests.''

Ability to destroy buildings, so watch for out-side [[trading depot]]s.
{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Animals}}

v0.31:Sasquatch

2010-05-30T00:24:59Z

Dudemcman:

{{CreatureInfo v0.31
|name=Sasquatch
|symbol=S
|color=6:0:0
|biome=
* {{L|Temperate}} {{L|forest}}
* {{L|Taiga}}
|wiki=no

}}
{{av}}{{Quality|Fine}}

:''A large and mysterious ape-like creature found in temperate forests.''

Ability to destroy buildings, so watch for out-side [[trading depot]]s.
{{gamedata}}
{{Creatures}}
{{Category|Animals}}

40d:Adventurer mode

2010-03-24T00:31:46Z

Dudemcman: /* Survival */

In '''adventurer mode''', you pick a race ([[dwarf]], [[human]], or [[elf]]) and start out in either a [[Site|town]] of your race or in a previous [[fortress]] you played on. You can receive [[quest]]s, venture into the wilderness to find [[caves]], abandoned towers and other [[Site|villages]]. You can even visit your old [[Fortress|fortresses]] and find whatever riches were left to be guarded by the [[creatures]] that sealed the fate of your [[fortress]].

The user interface differs somewhat from [[fortress mode]]; you may want to refer to the [[Adventure Mode quick reference|quick reference]] guide, or examine the detailed [[controls]] page. [[Site map]] may also prove useful.

== Your first adventure ==

=== Picking a race ===
When it comes to picking a race, there is difference in [[skills]]. [[Dwarves]] cannot wear [[human]] sized [[armor]], and are somewhat limited in the [[weapons]] they can wield due to their size. [[Elves]] have a slightly different set of [[skills]]. [[Humans]] are generally fairly well-balanced, and are the easiest to acquire quests from. Each race fares differently in combat; you may wish to look at the races' pages for the finer details.

=== Choosing skills ===
Basically, if you want to start with a [[weapon]], you need to avoid having the most points spent in unarmored/[[wrestling]]. If you, for example, choose to start out with most points in [[swordsman]], you will start out with a [[sword]]. When you have chosen your preferred set of [[skills]], you can press {{key|Enter}} to embark. The weapon skill you choose will also determine what armor you start out with - swordsmen, macemen, axemen, hammermen, spearmen, and lashers start with chain armor and a shield, pikemen start with chain armor but no shield, bowmen and crossbowmen start with leather armor and no shield, and wrestlers start with no armor at all.

All the [[skills]] you see CAN be improved through use in game, so don’t worry about spreading them out completely evenly. In general, pick the [[skills]] you think you’re going to use. The [[skills]] are pretty self explanatory but its recommended that you put at least a few points into [[shield user]] and into a type of weapon. Be warned that [[weapon]] [[skills]] generally take a while to level up, so placing a good deal of points into a single weapon may be to your advantage. Also keep in mind that your skills determine what kind of equipment you have in the beginning, ie high sword skill means you’ll start with a sword. For information on the weapons and the other aspects of combat, please check the combat section. It is also a good idea to use a point or two for [[Swimming]], otherwise you might end up drowning in a puddle.

=== Setting out ===
If you chose human, you will start out inside the Mead hall. Up on the second floor, you will see a flashing Weapon Master who happens to be the local leader - press {{key|k}} and talk to him/her, then choose 'services' for a possible [[quest]]. You can talk to the Citizens and recruit them to your party for some additional combat aid if they feel like it (note, people with no combat skills are unlikely to follow you, and the leader and town guards never will.) If you choose dwarf, you start out in a region just outside the entrance to a given fortress. There is a [[mayor]] or the [[king]] himself inside the fortress.

Be sure to read the [[Adventure Mode quick reference]] or use the help files for more information on the commands in Adventure mode.

=== Survival ===
Congratulations, you’ve created a character and are now about to embark on your fantastic adventure! For now, lets focus on the bare bones of staying alive shall we? First things first, you need food and water. If you’re a human you start with some, but barring that you may need to find a waterskin. These can be bought in human towns, specifically at the shop. DO NOT STEAL THESE OR ANYTHING ELSE. Do not pick anything up and walk outside the store before you trade for it. Why? Because you are currently weak and your neck is currently arrow bait. After getting the water skin, simply find a water source and hit (Shift+I) to interact with the object. Press the letter of the Water skin and you should be able to fill it from the water source. After it’s full press (e)to open the Eat menu and select the water. Food can be acquired from stores eaten in the same way. Beware, you won't be able to swim if you are hungry, thirsty or if you haven't slept for a day or two. If you get drowsy, just find a bed in a city or just find a good place to sleep. Avoid sleeping in an hostile place, if you don't want to have too much [[fun]].

Now that you know how to work your mouth we can move on to miscellaneous tips for survival. Firstly, you are very tasty and chances are (unless you’re an elf) the wildlife will soon be attempting to eat your face. A bear or cougar isn’t too much of a problem because there’s only one, the real problem will be wolf packs.
A single wolf is easy to dispatch, but a dozen or so can prove very problematic indeed. Beware large packs until you’ve gained a little experience. Secondly, do not piss off the towns folk, as they tend to have guards. Lastly, beware of taking quests or attempting things before you’re ready, as you will more than likely have tons of [[fun]].

=== The Food and Drink ===
Adventurers are not picky eaters but care to eat food and drink clean water or booze.
Uncooked meat counts as food.
At the end of the day an adventurer will drink and eat just about any thing:
blood, vomit, worms, bugs, rotting body parts, etc.

=== Civilization? ===
Elves live out in the forest, literally. Although defined to specific regions on the map, they have no structural wealth whatsoever. Some trees are named.

Humans live in towns comprised of buildings and often a paved road. Human villages are highly modular. The small 5x5 buildings are citizen houses and are marked with an "H" on the town auto-map. Medium buildings are stores, marked with a symbol that indicates what they sell - weapons, armor, food, clothing, trinkets. As of the current version, you start in the mead hall which is marked with an "M" on the automap. There are one or two apartment buildings buildings which are two stories, with six rooms a story; they are also marked with an "H." There are two really large buildings - the "T"emple and the a fort-like building that is marked with "K." Temples tend to have two or three levels, and a pool of water, while the "K" buildings are three or four floors high and are almost entirely empty (they will occationally contain random smatterings of clothing though, if you're looking for things to sell.)

Dwarves live underground. Their entrances are large square pits with stairs around the perimeter, and a row of leading down into the fortress halls at the bottom. The main halls are wide and have pillars near the walls, long and occasionally turn corners. Different levels in the fortress are marked by a row of ramps with two pillars on the side (walk towards the side of the ramp that has the pillars) and, although the number of floors in a fortress can vary, they are usually little and only become deep if the lay of the land above is variable. There are two-tile-wide hallways, empty 5x5 rooms, and scant Dwarves in these pre-fab fortresses. It's obvious the computer is playing a completely different game than you are in [[Fortress Mode]]!

Goblins live in [[obsidian]] towers, usually found built in twos, though they both don't necessarily have to be built up. One could be a "tower," one could be an over-glorified "basement." There is probably a temple nearby, completely similar to human temples. Goblin towers have tight 1-wide hallways, spacious and empty rooms, and strange hall extensions that end in remote cross-like dead-ends. Like dwarf fortresses, there is rarely anything in a Goblin tower asides from Goblins, and they have a strange tendency not to attack non-Goblin visitors. They seem to have lots of children.

You may come across what the map defines as a "Goblin" city that is actually populated by Humans or Dwarves living in or around the towers.

=== Trading ===
In towns you can find merchants inside some [[buildings]]. These merchants have the [[Shopkeeper]] profession and will trade only when they are in their respective shops. Talk to them to trade with them. After buying an item, you must pick it up manually from somewhere in the shop. {{K|l}}ook around for an item without $ signs around it. Due to these limitations, there are only "human town" [[shopkeeper]]s in a pre-fab Adventure mode civilization.

==== Selling ====
You can also sell things to traders. Bones, corpses, body parts and rocks are not valuable, no matter how attached you are to a particularly aerodynamic kobold head. Small creatures discovered while {{k|L}}ooking Carefully may be worth a small amount of money. In order to sell or buy items, stand adjacent to the shopkeeper in his store, and {{k|k}}onverse with the shopkeeper. Select "Trade" and press {{k|enter}} to open the trade window.

Select each non-worthless item you wish to sell, and then set a price using the following format{{verify}}:
* {{k|a}} asking for 9000☼
* {{k|s}} +100☼
* {{k|d}} +10☼
* {{k|f}} +1☼
* {{k|g}} reset to 0☼
* {{k|h}} -1☼ (offering)
* {{k|j}} -10☼
* {{k|k}} -100☼
* {{k|l}} offer 9000☼

The use of these keys may seem non-intuitive, and this is further complicated by the limit on your available offers by your current financial health.

Shopkeepers are used to adventurers with inflated ideas about the value of their goods, so it may be simplest to ask for 9000☼ for your goods, or offer 1☼ for theirs and suggest a {{k|t}}rade. The shopkeeper will counteroffer with the actual value of the goods, and will be quite delighted to accept a {{k|t}}rade at the price they've just quoted to you. You can then purchase things with your store credit. After the trade sessions, the balance of your coins will appear on a small table next to a chest.

====Theft====
You may also pick up the item before buying it, but you should never walk out of a shop carrying an unbought item, as that is theft. It is punishable by death if you are caught, and excommunication if you are not. On any occasion when you have stolen goods from a store, ie goods bounded by the $$ signs, the game requires you to exit the site ''and'' travel a considerable distance before allowing you to travel. This may make a getaway more difficult if your adventurer is not already faster than anyone else. This only applies to goods in stores; killing townsfolk and taking their personal things, including those of the shopkeep still only requires exiting the site. The moment you are out of sight, you will be able to warp out as usual. Theft and murder remain within entities; even depopulating one country and stealing all its things will not generate ill response in another country.

====Managing coins====
Coins can and will encumber your adventurer, eventually reducing your speed. To reduce that effect you can try to exchange your copper and silver coins for gold ones. To do that you can purchase goods from a merchant to the sum of your copper coins, then sell them back. Check the merchant's chest to see how much gold and silver coins they have. You can delay the problem by selling your loot to many merchants, as they will try to pay you in higher denomination currency first.

A few goods are strictly superior to all forms of coinage as a store of value, most commonly giant cave spider silk items. A suitably sneaky (or powerful) adventurer can murder a few dwarves or goblins for such items for trade and sale for human goods. Giant cave spider silk is a non-renewable resource in a given world - please harvest responsibly.

=== Equipping your adventurer ===
After acquiring [[armor]] from one source or another, you'll most likely want to equip it. To do this, first make sure it is in your possession--not on the ground. You can then {{key|w}}ear it, granted you don't already have too much on that equipment slot already. You can {{key|r}}emove or {{key|d}}rop inferior equipment as necessary.

[[Weapons]] and [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shields]] are handled differently. There is no explicit equipment command. Instead, they are automatically equipped when you either {{k|g}}et them from the ground or {{k|r}}emove them from your [[backpack]] - provided the hand that would wield them is free. So in order to change [[weapons]] or [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|Shields]] you would need to {{k|p}}ut your equipped weapon into your [[backpack]] and then {{k|r}}emoving your new desired weapon. You do not need to drop weapons and equip new ones etc. Simply remember the {{k|r}}emove command and the {{k|p}}ut into container command.

It should be noted that the world of DF seems to have a lot of left handers, so do not be surprised if your character holds the weapon with the left hand and the [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shield]] with the right hand.

== Traveling the world ==

=== How-to ===
You can walk around the whole world tile by tile if you wish, but given the size of the world, you might want to consider using another method. Pressing {{key|T}} will let see a very zoomed out map of the surrounding area. Moving about on this map is much faster, as well as it heals your adventurer, keeps him from starving, dehydrating, or getting tired. To exit this screen and explore the area you've reached, press {{k|>}}.

If there is more than one feature such as a [[Site|town]] or group of [[creatures]] on that map tile you will get to choose which one you want to arrive near.

Also while traveling on the world map, there is a chance that your adventurer can get randomly ambushed by enemies. When that happens, you must survive by either fighting them off or hide from them.

Jumping off [[Cliff|cliffs]] is not normally advisable; however, it is possible to do so by holding {{key|Alt}} while pressing the appropriate movement key. Jumping off [[Cliff|cliffs]], depending on how high you jumped, will most of the time cover your eyes in blood, which lessens visuals.

=== Finding a Quest ===
At this present point Quests can only be taken from people of leadership in an organization.

Human Weapon Masters: No matter what time of the day, human weapon masters will be in the mead hall, where you appear. However, if it is late they will immediately head for their homes so you may need to intercept them before they reach the door. The human capitals are not very different from the normal towns; humans have no central leadership so each weapon master is only a local leader of their own town, even at the capital the weapon master only rules the capital itself and not the other towns. Ignore the keeps; unless you're playing with a mod like LL no leaders hang out in the Keeps.

High Priests: Humans and Goblins will often suggest you ask the High Priest for quests but in all my times of doing this all this will do is allow you to join their religion. If you want to join the religion, the High Priest, as long as it is a reasonable time of day, should be wandering around the temple. Worth a visit at least as Temples are often the most interesting parts of a town/dark fortress because there are so many different kinds.

Dwarven Mayors/Kings/Queens: Hit and miss finding them, you'll generally find them on the outside of the fort but sometimes they move around; some have been known to run out of the fort and became a migrant unable to give out quests. Both Mayors and Kings/Queens can be found and both will assign Quests, which is nice. If you can't find them outside the fort you shouldn't really bother as mountainhomes take forever to search. As one might imagine the Kings/Queens can only be found at the Capital.

Elven Druids: Druids, who look like flashing peasants, are generally found in the middle of their Forest Retreats but it can be a bit hit and miss as well. Just keep looking; they don't usually seem to move and hopefully will be in the same place once the Quest is completed. Probably the 2nd easiest to find as you just look around the Forest. Despite people saying they dislike the Elves, in adventure mode they invariably give out the best Quests because Elves are not attacked by normal animals, so the only targets for your Quests will be Mega/Semi-Megabeasts or the leaders of enemy factions. Even though elves do have a capital there is nothing special to see there; still only one Druid who is only in charge of the Retreat, not the civ.

Goblin Weaponmasters/Demons: Probably the hardest to find; most Dark Fortresses are multitowered making it very difficult to find the leaders as there are several multifloored towers with twisty passages. Generally they will be in the tallest tower but this is not a definite fact. Sadly, they move around sometimes and are very difficult to find. The Demons are only in the Capital while weaponmasters exist in every Dark Fortress as local leaders. The goblins often have fun Quests as they generally seem to be at war with other civs.

Kobold Weaponmasters: Often hanging around the middle of a kobold cave camp; however, these guys cannot talk to you and as a result cannot give you a Quest (although you can use them to train your Sword skill)

=== Finding quest locations ===
After receiving a [[quest]], you will be able to track its location using the {{key|Q}}uest log. Initially it will just give you the location on the {{key|T}}ravel map, though a lesser-known feature is its use in finding the cave entry (or other such target) once you're already in the [[Site map|local map]]. Bring up the quest log again, highlight the quest objective you're after, and {{key|z}}oom to it. It should then provide you with a local map of your current area, complete with a 3x3 box of flashing squares. This box indicates the general location of the cave's mouth. You'll still have to do some searching, but at least it's narrowed down for you. You can bring up this map at any time that you're in the local area of a quest objective.

The compass on the left of the screen will also greatly help you in finding the entrance; the direction indicated should place you within one screen's distance of the entrance before it turns into "---".

=== Visiting abandoned fortresses ===
If you start an adventure in a world with one or more abandoned [[Fortress|fortresses]], you can take your adventurer to see the sites of your previous endeavors. When you find one of your old [[Fortress|fortresses]], you will find that everything is a mess. Items are scattered about, things are smashed up and there are probably new hostile inhabitants that you will need to fend off. Visiting your old [[Fortress|fortresses]] might prove to be rewarding, since you can find [[armor]] and [[weapons]] you made (if you made any). The best thing to be found in your [[fortress]] would probably be any left behind [[Legendary artifact|artifact]] [[weapon]] or [[armor]]. This is also the only way to get [[Legendary artifact|artifact-quality]] [[weapons]] and [[armor]].

Also remember to check out any [[Engraving#Engravings|engravings]] you made while in [[fortress mode]]. When checking out [[Engraving#Engravings|engravings]] in adventure mode, they reveal a lot more specific information about the event that is engraved.

== Combat ==
=== The Weapons ===
Weapons are basically divided into axe, sword, spear, pike, mace, whip, bow and hammer, with various versions of these taking up the gray area. Swords are your jack of all trades weapon, doing reasonable slashing damage. They come in short, long and two handed varieties, with the two handed doing the most damage and the short doing the least. Axes are similar to swords and do slashing damage as well. They come in 3 types, battle axe, great axe and halberd. The battle axe does slightly less damage than the long sword while the halberd does the same damage as a two-handed sword. The Great axe is generally too large to use, but it does slightly more than the halberd in damage. The spear does piercing damage and is ideal for damaging internal organs and causing heavy bleeding and unconsciousness. It has no variations. The spear is much more likely to become stuck in its target, which can be a great benefit if used right and a curse if not. The Pike is, for all intents and purposes, the same as a spear. The mace and the hammer are generally the same thing, simply a big metal thing to club your enemies over the head. As expected, they do high damage but their bludgeoning attacks tend to be slower and less effective , if more hilarious, ways to dispatch your foes. The Maul, a hammer, is the highest damaging weapon in the game. The last weapon is the whip, which does gore damage. Its relatively weak but has its uses. The bow throws arrows, which act as tiny spears. Basically, a bow and crossbow is like having a very slow, long range spear.

=== Weapon Tactics ===
* Sword: Once again, your general fall back weapon. It’s good against almost everything, if not being that great against almost anything. Works well against both living and non-living enemies as it actively dismembers them.
* Ax: Pretty much the same as a sword, though some people believe it hacks off limbs more commonly. Good against organics, acceptable against anything else.
* Spear/Pike: Ok, here’s where we get a little bit more advanced. The spear is most effective against organic creatures because of two abilities, pierce damage and stick ins. Piercing damage does major harm to internal organs, causing pain, bleeding, vomiting, unconsciousness and death. Stick-ins are when the weapon becomes stuck in the target, allowing it to be twisted. Twisting increases bleeding and causes extreme pain. Because of these two factors spears and pikes are ideal for single combat against organic targets. The are less effective against multiple enemies (because of the stick-ins lowering kill-to-turn ratios) and are even less effective against non-organic enemies (ie bronze colossus).
* Mace/hammer: These weapons rely on their ability to turn your opponent into a tasty pulp through repeated wacking. They break bones and bruise flesh, meaning that aside from a critical hit they generally are less likely to mortal wounds quickly. They are great for crippling organics and non-organics alike, but when it comes to a swift, efficient death they are generally less than perfect. The exception to this is high strength and mace/hammer skill which allows for instant head crushing.
* Whip: The whip uses gore damage, which is similar to a cross between slash and pierce. It can cut off limbs but is more likely to slice up organs and cause extreme pain and bleeding. A few hits will generally render an opponent unconscious and perhaps even badly injured enough to eventually bleed to death. However, the whip is a slow outright killer, sometimes needing dozens of blows to actually finish its target.
* Bow (and arrows): Arrows are much like spears, because of their piercing damage and all the benefits it has. The benefits it has however are its range and its ability to target multiple enemies. They are most effective against organic targets. You, unfortunately, are organic, which makes archers one of your biggest problems.

=== Non-weapon tactics ===

Besides your weapons you have two other major forms of attack: Wrestling and throwing.

Wrestling: Wrestling can be performed by standing next to an enemy and pressing (Shift+a) and then (enter) to switch to wrestling. You can wrestle any enemy, however things such as wolves, bears and big cats do not allow you to perform the more advanced moves. After catching hold of a body part you can perform a lock, which allows you to further sprain, break or cripple an opponent. With a free hand you can perform even more advanced moves, such as gouging out eyes, choking the neck, and stealing weapons. To gouge eyes grab a head with an open hand, to choke the neck grab a neck with a open hand, and to steal a weapon, grab the weapon and then check your inventory with (Shift+I). press the button corresponding to the weapon and then press a to gain possession of it.

One of the best tactics for fighting high level weapon masters is to either break his weapon hand or to steal his weapon, essentially making him no more dangerous than a normal peasant.

Throwing: Throwing is the skill of…well basically throwing shit. And vomit. And bugs and spears and rocks so on. Just about anything can be thrown, sometimes with devastating results. While it seems like weapons (and arrows) tend to be more reliable in their damage causing abilities when thrown, just about anything can potentially be lethal. Picking up a worm and hucking it right through a dragon’s skull is not only possible, but has been done on multiple occasions. A warrior with a high throw skill is often times more dangerous with an arrow than a trained archer is.

== Wounds ==
You or your enemy are going to get hurt in the course of your adventures and its pretty useful to know exactly what’s happening when you are. Here’s a quick guide to the various aspects of wounds.

=== Wound indicators ===
Wounds come in several colors and are indicated on the status screen (press z to see your own status screen while pressing (l) to look at your enemy’s). The status screen will list your body parts in different colors to indicate how damaged they are.
White-unhurt and feeling fine

Light gray-slightly damaged, think a nasty scrape or cut.

Brownish yellow-moderately damaged, such as a mild sprain or the like

Yellow-Broken. Applied to joints it means literally broken, while applied to upper and lower body it generally means organ damage.

Red-Badly damaged. If you got this then chances are you’re in bad shape. Severely broken bones or ruptured organs. If this status is affecting anything even remotely vital you’re more than likely on your way to the grave.

Gray-lopped off or cut out. This is when you completely lose a body part. Effects include massive pain and bleeding along with ruining your promising juggling career. For some body parts (Noticeably the eye) it will not recover - if not a very long time - and will cause constant pain and unconsciousness, if so then consider restarting in a previous save or completely because fast travelling will not heal it.

=== Wound effects ===
Hands: Damage to the fingers or wrists can cause you to drop your held items, but usually only with yellow level damage. Losing a hand entirely gives you a serious handicap, which will more than likely lead to [[fun]] in the future.

Feet: Causes slowed movement and falling. If removed can cause permanent slowed movement. Removing both can cause a continuous on ground effect.

Legs: Similar to feet, though often has increased bleeding and pain effects. Loss of one will usually result in death by bleed out. Even if you survive, you’re more than likely on your way to death. Severed legs do make a lovely club though.

Arms: Damage to almost any part of the arm can cause items to be dropped. Loss of an arm is perhaps even worse than the loss of a leg, due to the loss of weapon and wrestling capabilities. Loss of both arms is both tragic and hilarious.

Head: Contains the brain, ears, mouth, nose, eyes and throat. Ears, nose and mouth are officially useless and can be cut off in an effort to appear cool. The brain, eyes and throat are however less disposable. Damage to the eyes results in loss of vision, permanent if the eyes are removed, and terrible pain. It's usually not possible to bleed to death from eye loss, though. The throat is highly sensitive and damage causes both extreme bleeding and suffocation effects. The brain is the most important thing you’ve got, and damage to it is an almost instant death. Any wound it receives will more than likely cause instant unconsciousness and severe bleeding.

Upper body: Contains the heart, lungs, upper spine, liver and kidneys. Both the kidneys and liver have similar effects; namely, heavy bleeding and pain upon injury. The spine causes nervous system damage, which can have several, sometimes permanent effects. The lungs control breathing, so piercing them can cause suffocation. The heart is the main organ of the circulatory system and damage to it is almost always fatal through bleeding.

Lower body: Contains various organs like the stomach and spleen, all of which have the same effect of bleeding, pain and nausea. Nausea leads to vomiting, which makes the wounded creature unable to attack. There is also the lower spine, which has similar effects to the upper spine.

=== Attack types and their wounds ===
Pierce-dangerous to organic creatures, you included. Often times objects with the pierce effect will become lodged in their target. Removing the weapon from its lodged position causes both increased pain and bleeding but often times can alleviate certain symptoms the piercing has caused.

Bludgeon: Breaks bones and cripples joints. Generally less dangerous to the internal organs than other damage. The danger comes from its ability to incapacitate you and then turn your head to mush.

Slash: Dangerous for its ability to sever limbs and cause bleeding. Beware its habit of decapitation.

Gore: Shreds internal organs, causing all sorts of nasty side effects. Almost worthless on non-organic enemies but can cause severe problems for you living sorts.

=== Dealing with wounds ===
In adventure mode your wounds will heal if you travel (shift + t) and they’ll recover just about anything except a lopped off limb. If you can’t travel the best thing to do is try and run from battle if you’re badly wounded, since running will give you time to stop bleeding and suppress the pain. Beware dropping your weapon and make sure to pick it up before you make a run for it. If an arrow strikes you in the chest its best to leave it there while an arrow to the extremities can be removed.

== <s>Living Shields</s> Companions ==

If you recruit some new members to your party, you'll not only gain extra damage output, you'll also have someone else to take the damage instead of you!

When you first start out, the easiest <s>human shields</s> friends to recruit are the drunks. They are found in human towns inside the [[tavern]] with the [[Mayor]] (the building you start in if you play a human). They will gladly come with you and block some blows for you. Drunks will usually attempt low-skill [[wrestling]] and (mostly) damage-less punches. Don't expect them to last long when you meet that [[Giant]] you are supposed to kill. Drunks are much rarer in the current version of the game, so it's unlikely that you'll find one.

To recruit someone into your party, press tal{{k|k}}, move the cursor over them, and press {{k|enter}}. Then in the conversation that follows, simply pick 'Join' from the list of options to ask them to accompany you. [[Children]], the Mayor, and [[Guard]]s don't want any part of this silly adventuring malarkey, but the occasional peasant will be bored enough to join you.

More detailed searches of towns of various races can yield other adventurers with some actual skills. The generally have a single weapon skill ([[Maceman]], [[Swordsman]], [[Spearman]] and so on) and some armor appropriate to the wealth of the town they were occupying. You will also find Guards around towns, and while they are combat-capable they will not shirk their duty in order to accompany you on your adventures.

Some otherwise eligible companions may rebuff your offer of becoming a living shield for one of the following reasons:

If the prospective meat shield considers himself more skilled than you are, he may rebuff you with, "Ha! Such enthusiasm from one such as yourself."
This can be remedied by training your skills until he judges you a bit more skillful than he is.

Another reason for someone to refuse to die protecting you is that you already have the maximum of 12 companions, and they will rebuff you by asking, "With a band so large, what share of the glory would I have?"
But look at it this way, at least your total party size is 13 when you count yourself! Now that's lucky!

Another possibility is to ask your old, retired adventurers for help. They'll never say no unless your party is too big. They should be pretty capable since you trained them.

You can ask the Prisoners of goblins to join you, and they will always say yes, regardless of the size of your party. Being nothing more than children, they have less fighting ability than drunks. However, if you have no moral reservations, they make excellent distractions for that particularly troublesome wolf pack that you come across on your travels. (Note: Elven prisoners will not attack any "normal" creatures or ones that do not attack them. That includes wolves.)

== The Perils of the Wild ==

{{d for dwarf}}

You’ll face many creatures on your travels, several mega and semi-mega beasts included if you’re taking quests. Here's a quick look at the more dangerous beasts (sentient or not) that you’ll meet.

=== The Mega and Semi-mega beasts and the sentient races ===

* Bronze Colossus: Probably one of the hardest beasts to combat due to its massive strength, impressive natural armor and complete ignorance of pain, fear and bleeding. Bronze Colossi are basically walking, dwarf crushing statues that will never stop unless beheaded or outright obliterated. They have no organs and do not bleed, making them impossible to knock unconscious. Their immense strength makes them unlikely to give in to wrestling moves (though if you can manage to lock and break a limb it will snap off rather than just becoming useless.) Because of these resistances all you can really do is hack / shoot and hope that it dies before you do.
* Dragon: The main danger of these beasts is their massive fire breath, which can consume dozens of spaces. A high block skill is recommended before you fight them. A spear is a great weapon here, as it allows you to potentially knock them unconscious within a few turns by piercing their heart and lungs in one strike, mangling and thus, dooming them. Arrows are also good, though staying at a distance can be dangerous because of the fire breath. Beware their bite, as it can cause major damage.
* Hydra: a joke really, as It seems to lack the regenerative powers of its mythological cousin. It has 7 heads, but damage to one is as serious as damaging the head of a one headed beast. More than likely you’ll have it unconscious in a few turns regardless of what you use due to the high probability of targetting one of it's many heads. Beware though, as once the new version comes out, this is most likely to change and the hydra may become that much tougher to kill.
* Titan: basically an organic bronze colossus. It is essentially a larger, stronger human, with all the weaknesses being the same. Piercing and goring damage can quickly weaken and incapacitate these beasts, but keep an eye out for its wrestling, which can cause some bad joint damage.
* Cyclops: A weaker, smaller titan with one eye. Eye+arrow=No-clops. They are very often given as quests to beginners. This leads to foolish adventurers thinking there easy and trying to take him/her on without <s>meat shields</s> party members. This is inevitably followed by [[Fun]], in the form of explosive gore.
* Ettin: A two headed giant. Basically a stronger human, usually unarmed. Just hack it until it dies.
* Giant: Just a giant human like thing. Stab it in the neck or break its limbs for massive damage.
* Minotaur: Only thing really dangerous about this guy is his horns. Pretty good wrestler but nothing that should give a reasonably prepared adventurer any problems.
* Humans: Should you wander into battle against a human force its in your best interest to disable their archers first. The only real danger humans have is their numbers and their use of items. Disarming or crippling dangerous guards or weapon masters is highly recommended, since as soon as they are weaponless they are essentially as good as dead.
* Elves: They have wooden equipment, making them laughable most of the time. Once again, the only real threat is their archers and even then they are less dangerous than humans. Elves are generally known for being annoying dicks so it's recommended that you slaughter the lot. If you are an elf it's recommended that you have tons of [[fun]].
* Dwarves: Their advantage is their steel weaponry and crossbows. Their disadvantage is that their mountain homes are generally so large that you’ll only rarely fight more than one or two. Disable their weapon masters and archers then throw their own axes at them. Juggle their heads in front of their children.
* Goblins: Like weaker dwarves, with less armor and less skill. They have a feeble sense of morals, meaning that they will only sometimes attack you after you hurt one of their friends. You can basically cleave right through them with somewhat relative ease as they still have weaponmasters as well, including master archers and crossbowgoblins.

=== Other Humanoids ===

These are creatures that in shape resemble something human, but have no society.

* Antman: A half man half ant hybrid which lives in chasms. They have higher natural armor than a man, but rarely use tools. As long as you’re armed they should pose no problem.
* Batman: Half man, half bat that lives in caves and chasms. They can fly and use weapons, though they rarely do. Attacks with punches and bites; the bites are the most potentially damaging because they cause gore damage. He is the night.
* Blizzard man: Frosty’s asshole brother. Blizzard men are creatures of pure ice that strangely still have organs. They can bite and punch, with biting doing the most damage. They will melt in normal temperatures so they are only found in freezing areas.
* Dark gnome: Mischievous mountain folk who enjoy hard liquor. They‘re basically dwarfs but smaller and no where near as dangerous. Its rare that you’ll even find them, but if you do they should pose no threat to you. They usually come in packs and make a beeline toward your alcohol reserves in order to drink as much as they can. They get scared off easily enough though, and their punch and bite attacks are rather weak. More annoying and a potential drain on resources than truly dangerous.
* Fire Imp: Little gremlin like things that are either constantly on fire or made of fire. They’re found only in subterranean lava pits, meaning that you’ll have to go searching for them if you’re ever gonna see one. They only bite (does burn damage rather than gore), but their real danger comes from their ability to set you on fire. Ranged combat is recommended, though darting forward, attacking and then jumping away might be effective if you have no other choice. They like to throw fireballs at you from a distance, which can be a big problem if you're fighting in a grassy environment
* Firemen: Like the fire imps, but better. They have the bronze colossus syndrome of having no organs, not bleeding, feeling pain or being able to have weapons stuck in them. They too can set you ablaze, but they’re much harder to kill before they do it. Bludgeoning can break and hence sever their limbs. Recommended that you fight from a distance. Luckily these things only live in underground lava, so you’ll never find them without going into very specific places.
* Frogman: Half-man half-frogs that live in underground water. They can’t equip weapons and are very small, making them almost completely non-threatening.
* Iron man: They are basically smaller, less dangerous Bronze Colossi. When killed they leave a valuable iron statue. They appear only in chasms.
* Leechman: Half man, half leech. They have no bones, but curiously do have arms (but no legs). They can suck blood, but considering they have no bones and every blow will almost always strike a vital organ its a lot more likely that blood will be coming out of it than you.
* Lizardman: A staple creature of virtually every adventure type or RPG type game ever. Half man, half lizard; lives in underground water. Punches and bites along with the ability to use items.
* Magma man: A man made of pure magma. Everything about this guy is the exact same as the fire man, with the exception that he can’t breathe fire. This makes him less dangerous at a distance. Stay back and throw stuff at him.
* Merpersons: Tiny little mermaids and mermen. Not dangerous at all, and relatively rare to boot. They can equip items but you’ll probably never see one anyway. Their bones are extremely valuable.[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=25967.0]
* Mountain Gnome: The same as a Dark Gnome, but less evil. Same things apply here.
* Mud man: Like Ironman but made of mud. Can’t equip items and only has a weak punch as a form of attack, making it about as threatening as a mudpie. Lives in underground water.
* Ogre: The middle ground between giant and human. Their punches and bites do a surprisingly small amount of damage, though they can use weapons. As with any big, organic moron its recommended to try and damage their organs to quickly incapacitate and kill them. Piercing damage is very useful.
* Olmman: Half man, half blind cave salamander. Their bites are surprisingly strong. Found only in subterranean water and even then only rarely.
* Ratman: These guys tend to come in packs and are capable of biting and punching moves, despite the group mentality, they tend to be rather substandard on the threat scale.
* Slugman: Do I even have to say? it’s a damn slug man, do you think its dangerous? It's not. Just stab it in its deformed face.
* Snail man: Think slug man, but with a shell that doesn’t actually offer any protection.
* Snakemen: The only real threat these guys pose is their ability to inject poison by biting. If it does bite you, your best bet to try and quickly kill the snake man before the poison takes effect. But even then it's easily cured by [T]raveling. If you're going to be on the local map for some time though don't worry too much, all it will do is temporarily render you stunned.
* Troglodyte: Your stereotypical caveman. Not dangerous unless they attack in swarms and even then they are easily beaten. Use organic combating techniques to deal with them.
* Troll: There’s no real difference between this thing and an ogre. Kill them both the same way.
* Werewolf: Or wolfman. Attacks alone and only bites with a goring attack. Bite can be dangerous but the fact that there is only one of him makes it a lot easier to fight. Fun to wrestle for experience.

=== Wildlife ===

Here’s the rundown of all the mundane beasties that you’ll run into

* Beak dog: Basically what happens when parrot gets combined with Velociraptors. They’re a little smaller than a man but quick and use their beaks and claws effectively. Try not to get caught in the center of a group of them, backpedal and cut them down as they give chase.
* Black Bear: These will only ambush you one on one, and given their relative small size and forgettable strength they should pose little threat unless you’re completely unskilled and unarmed. Because there’s only one they can be useful for wrestling practice since you can focus all your attention on them.
* Bonobo: I’ve never seen one myself, though I’ve been told they’re ape like things. Considering their squishy organs it would be best to stab them in the groin.
* Camel: Its…a camel. You’ll probably never see one.
* Carp: Carp aren’t too dangerous in adventure mode. They are often found in the river and the only way they have a real chance of killing you is if you have not trained in swimming and you wind up dodging one of their attacks and land in the river, which can not be climbed back out
* Cougar: Like a kitty, but bigger. Cougars are good wrestling practice and good shield training as well, what with the fact that Cougars suck so hard. If you get killed by this thing it was either insanely lucky or you have no arms.
* Deer: You might see these running away from you in the woods. They’re harmless but good wrestling practice if you feel like strangling a defenseless animal.
* Donkey: Pulls wagons and things like that. You might see one but its not really worth attacking them.
* Elephants: In prior versions elephants were murderous berserkers, but thankfully they’ve been made a little more realistic. They’re just as big and strong as you’d expect, but won’t bother you unless you walk up and stab’em a few times. Reasonably dangerous, so don’t poke them unless you’re ready.
* Elk: Much like deer, though a little bigger and usually solitary
* Fox: Another small animal that you’ll most likely never see.
* Giant bat: Bigger than a minotaur and more dangerous at times. Often encountered in low visibility areas where they can take you by surprise. Its best to avoid caves until you’re confident in your blocking and combat skills.
* Giant Cave Spiders: You’ll only rarely encounter these, because of their limited environment. You’ll know they’re near from the webs which hang around their homes. They are NOT to be meddled with. First and foremost, they do not feel pain and will never stop unless killed. Their high number of legs makes it likely that you’ll pointlessly hack away at the limbs while the mouth bites your head in half. Beyond these aspects the spider uses poison and sticky webs to ensnare you. Your best bet is to throw/shoot at it from a distance. If you can’t do that, use other piercing or goring weapons to damage its organs. Despite its ignorance toward pain, it still bleeds like any other animal, so a pierced heart is very effective.
* Giant cave swallow: Like the giant cave bat, they can be deceptively dangerous, so try and knock it out of the air via throwing so it'll suffer falling damage before you close the distance.
* Giant Eagle: A major problem in fortress mode is little more than a pesky annoyance in adventure mode. If they are giving you trouble though, attempt to wrestle and break one of their wings. This should ground them and make them a much easier target.
* Grizzly Bear: A little bigger than the Black Bear, though basically the same. Good for both wrestle and shield points. If they’re really giving you a hard time try catching both hands and its throat. This should not only make it impossible for it to attack, but also give you wrestle points.
* Groundhog: Little rodent thingies. Zombie ground hogs are useful to strangle for wrestling experience. Besides that they’re only really good as golf balls for your putter (read Morningstar)
* Hippo: Fairly large beasts who like to gather near rivers to eat fish. They are not too hostile, but are thick-skinned. Be wary about getting your weapon stuck in them, as they might flee with it across the river, never to return.
* Hoary Marmot: A tiny forest dwelling creature. As harmless as it is delicious.
* Horse: A beast of burden sometimes seen in human towns. They have an odd habit of going rogue and kicking children to death. Not to mention they’re some how smart enough to pull crossbow bolts out of their own legs. May cause random insanity if they attack a influential citizen.
* Naked mole dog: Think enormous naked mole rat. They are capable of landing a lucky blow and causing serious damage, but otherwise, easy to fight off.
* Mountain Goat: It’s a goat, that lives in the mountains.
* Pike: The fish, not the weapon. They’re nothing close to the carp and should be little more than particularly squishy speed bumps to you.
* Rhesus Macaque: A nettlesome trickster in fortress mode, they are almost never seen in adventure mode. Even if you see them they’re very skittish and a single blow will send them running. Give’em a good strangle if you can catch one.
* Unicorn: The random homicidal tendencies of the horse mixed with a dash of magic and a horn. They’re very aggressive for some reason, though not too hard to bring down. Watch out for that horn and stay away until you’re at least competent.
* Whale: Big aquatic beast. Not dangerous unless in skeletal mode.
* Wolf: And last but not least, the humble and numerous wolf. This is an all too common ambush predator and you'll ALWAYS fight them by the pack. They can be dangerous in the first few ambushes if you let them surround you, however, with a few brothers-in-arms and personal experience they can quickly become trivial. Great for training up armor and shield, as they attack in packs and hence hit you many times, often with no effect. Early on, just be careful not to get caught in the middle of a pack and you’ll be fine. They have a random chance to rip your throat out. The most dangerous aspect about them is that when they ambush you, you have a fairly decent chance of being caught in the middle of the pack.

=== Modifiers ===
* Zombie: Zombie animals are just like their normal counterparts, with a few major exceptions. Firstly, they are no longer affected by pain or bleeding and their organs no longer matter. They are also much slower. This combination of increased difficulty in killing and decreased speed about evens out their threat level. Not too dangerous, unless the creature they’re based on is already strong. (Note: Since they do not perish by strangling, breaking all of the limbs of a zombie and throttling it constantly is a great way to gain wrestling experience.)
* Skeletal: All of the advantages of Zombie with none of the bad effects. Skeletal creatures are all immune to pain and do not bleed, but they remain just as quick as their living counterparts. Large skeletal beasts, such as dragons or whales are truly a terror to face.

== Avoid the impossible ==
Some things are harder than others. Decide for yourself if this is due to unbalancing of the game, realism or simply to add to the variety of challenges.

=== [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelob Shelob]'s in-laws, aka Giant Cave Spiders ===
Unless you are a legendary or better (ok, its not possible to go beyond legendary) bow-/crossbowman, you should at all costs AVOID giant cave spiders (Unless, of course, you enjoy [[Fun]])!! They shoot a web at you, making you immobilized while they rip your limbs off one by one. Then when you finally break free from the web, and can attack again, you've probably lost your arms while lying on the floor and the spider is about to throw you by your head up into the roof. Cave Spiders bleed to death eventually, but they know no fear nor pain, meaning they will not black out even if you manage to inflict serious damage including severed limbs. They are also capable of surviving red-level wounds to the body and legs and multiple severed limbs for long enough to eviscerate an adventurer. Leave these for the living shields to deal with while you slip out the other way, ideally from the cave entirely, never to return.

Even if you are a legendary projectile weapon user, reconsider attacking a giant cave spider because in the tight quarters of a cave you might be shooting it from stealth when a giant rat or something similarly stupid walks next to you and triggers your loss of cover. The spider would then punish your arrogance immensely.

''Note'': If absolutely required they ARE killable, but you need luck, and lots of it. Adept swordsman + Proficient [[shield]] user + Skilled ambusher manages to sneak up on it and then counterstrike + block does the job. In a suicide swordsman test run I had dethoraxation (decapitation for spiders) = instakill on the first counterstrike, second GCS got a mortal wound before it webbed me and bled to death while trying to chew through me, only broke sword wielding hand and leg. Third spider broke my shield hand and had me mortally wounded in no time after that, although I eventually killed it after unwebbing myself. That makes it ~2.5/3 chances to win, not bad for a rookie. And I was healed after each successful spider kill.

''To conclude'': Basically, as long as your shield wielding hand is intact (and shield skill is high of course) you have pretty good chances of survival in 1 on 1, otherwise you're dead. Any extra armor (in my case exceptional full plate + normal armor skill) also helps in glancing off their bites.

Another interesting thing is that before fighting one of them I threw a spear at it and it lodged in the wound, and it seems that the spider has a priority to break my grip as it repeatedly successfully broke my grip every time(that happened ~5-6 times in a row) I grabbed the lodged spear. That points to a possible distraction for a GCS in case of soloing it.

=== Arrows ===
Don't take on quests where you need to kill elite bow-/crossbowmen! Generally, avoid flying arrows! Why? Because bow/crossbowmen have the tendency to see farther than you can. They are therefore able to fire at you from beyond your sight, making it hard to see where the arrow(s) are coming from. You may therefor end up chasing the shooter in the wrong direction, giving the shooter even MORE time to turn you into a pin-cushion. Of course, this is only the case if you manage to survive the first 3-4 arrows, because arrows are BAD for anyone but the shooter's health. Piercing hits like arrows are much more likely to damage internal organs, and while you might shrug off a moderate blunt hit to the chest a similar piercing hit could directly damage one or both lungs or your heart and instantly kill you.

One extremely useful survival tip is to immediately drop prone (with the s key) as soon as you notice you are being shot at. Prone targets move more slowly, but seem to be much harder to hit with ranged attacks than standing ones. This is also worth noting to avoid wasting ammunition on fallen targets.

Another solid solution is to get behind something as quickly as possible and try sneaking. Even when caught in the open cover as flimsy as a single tree may be sufficient to begin sneaking. Sneaking around trees can also sometimes act as a compass for determining the direction of the shooter. By checking when and where sneaking is possible, the approach vector of any given observer or close cluster of observers can be extrapolated.

Finally, since archers are generally sentient, most (besides mayors) can be killed in their sleep.

If you do accept a quest against an elite bowman or crossbowman and manage to reach melee range, immediately grapple its weapon, ideally by dropping yours and pulling the weapon out of its grasp entirely before throwing it away.

== Training yourself ==
Gaining stats ([[Attributes|strength, agility, toughness]]) helps a lot when fighting. How to best train yourself?

=== Throwing ===
To find rocks simply hit {{k|l}} and look at any rock coulored tiles some of these will be simply called by the rock name (e.g. [[limestone]]) and cannot be picked up but some will be called pebbles. Rocks are practically free ammo. When you find a tile with [[pebbles]], pick up a lot of them (there are infinite rocks), and start throwing them. You can simply throw them at the tile you are standing at. Every throw will gain you 30 points toward the skill "Throwing", and will after a while increase your stats (Strength, agility, toughness). You will need to throw 600 rocks to reach legendary Thrower (starting with no skill).

For best efficiency, drop all of your gear (including held but not worn items) and empty out your backpack near your throwing location. This is done in order to keep your inventory simple for the rock-throwing portion. Then pick up a ton of rocks by pressing {{k|g}}-{{k|a}} over and over- ideally one would pick up 600 rocks at a single time, but you will probably get bored before then. Then, mash {{k|t}}-{{k|a}}-{{k|enter}} over and over until all of your rocks are thrown back at the floor. If you are not a legendary Thrower after this, repeat. Afterwards, remember to pick up your gear and re-fill your backpack.

''Alternate way'' : It could be difficult to repeat the {{k|t}}-{{k|a}}-{{k|enter}} sequence without making mistake. So you can just alternate {{k|t}}-{{k|enter}} quickly : The first {{k|t}} will open the inventory, the second will chose the rock which is in "t" position, and {{k|enter}} will throw it. In the same fashion, when collecting rock, prefer a tile where the rock is on "b" position : If you quickly alternate {{k|g}} and {{k|a}}, sometime you will open the [a]nnouncement panel, which will slow you down. Another solution to this is to switch the ''pick up'' and ''announcements'' keys, so you can press {{k|a}} to pick up an item and {{k|a}} to pick up rock.

Thrown objects are also a cheap way to injure enemies before they reach you if you are a melee fighter.

You can also throw other stuff you find, like flies, beetles, worms, and even vomit or [[sand]]. If you have a tendency to chop off enemy limbs, you can even throw these limbs. Killing zombies with their companion's severed heads and feet is always good for a laugh. [[iron_man|Iron men]] are fun, because they leave behind a nice [[statue]] for the taking which can be thrown. Arrows and weapons seem to be particularly deadly when thrown because they deal the same damage as they would in melee, including piercing or slashing damage type, but even the most innocuous or silly items can come up with a kill.

Most thrown objects deal blunt type damage, so they will break and bruise limbs, but arrows and weapons can deal their normal damage types. This is particularly useful to consider when trying for a desperate one-shot kill on a [[Giant Cave Spider]] that's about to web you and shred you into little chunks, as piercing attacks like thrown arrows and [[spear]]s damage internal organs (making them more likely to get a one-hit kill, as an enemy can live through having the outside of their head moderately damaged but not from having the same amount of damage done to their brain) and thrown axes or swords can sever body parts and leave deep gashes (leading to massive bleeding or slit throats).

=== Bow/Crossbow-skill ===
This skill trains in the same fashion as throwing. You gain skill per shot, not per hit. This is a more expensive skill to train than throwing because you need to buy (or find) arrows/bolts, but is also a much more deadly skill. Fired projectiles do much more damage than thrown ones, and are also piercing type weapons which can do crippling damage to internal organs. The majority of thrown weapons are blunt and will do much more superficial bruising and bone-breaking damage- at best, a lucky hit will break someone's spine or damage internal organs to a small degree. Shooting arrows at enemies is fun, because it is very efficient and will destroy enemies quite easily.

Sadly, this also goes for enemy bow/crossbowmen. You will often be shot in the leg and crippled by an enemy you can't even see, who will then proceed to shoot you in the face until you die - which won't be very long afterwards unless you manage to find something to hide behind. This is somewhat avoidable - train in sneaking to avoid being seen by enemies that could otherwise perforate your skin, and get a good shield and armor to better keep arrows. (See below for both skills).

Make sure to take extra <s>meat shields</s> companions along with you if you're planning on using ranged weapons, it'll take time before you level the appropriate skill to bash things with your weapon in melee so it's imperative you stay out of the fighting till then. Drunks are particularly useful here, as they love to dive on things and collapse into a massive wrestling pile which you can take pot-shots at. Don't worry, you can't hit your guys. Not that you'd care.

Metal bolts are quite heavy and expensive, so if you wish to train in this skill it would probably be a good idea to raid an old fortress of yours first and get all the wooden/bone bolts there.

=== Wrestling ===
Since melee weapon skills are hard train because not every hit gives points towards the skill, why not train your [[wrestling]]? When you are alone with a unconscious enemy, why not break some limbs before finishing it off? Monsters often try to break your arms and legs, so having a bit of skill in wrestling will help break those locks a lot, and breaking that legendary swordsmans sword hand at the beginning of the fight will make him laughably weak. Also, training wrestling is a quicker way to better stats (strength, agility, toughness) because gain points per move instead of per "hit". Wrestling also handles dodging skill which is very handy to have.

A good way to train wrestling is to find an undead region on the map- preferably Sinister if you remember the map layout from Fortress Mode. Obtain a pack of zombie herbivores therein, preferably of small size- do not attempt this with zombie [[elephants]]. Slaughter every zombie in the vicinity of this pack of herbivores but the one that you think is the most crippled, making sure to pick one with a throat to leave alive.

Press {{k|c}} and change your combat preferences from Strike to Close Combat. This means that your default attack when you press towards an enemy to making a random wrestling move, or the continuation (joint lock, break) or (strangle) if you have a break/strangle-able area held.

Then, walk over, and grab the zombie's neck (yes, with your weapon or shield- it is quite optional to drop what you're holding) and begin strangulation by holding the direction the zombie is strangling in. You will make several strangles per second and gain approximately 15 XP (tentative measure) per strangulation. Zombies cannot die from this, so you will earn enough XP to become legendary within a few minutes.

When your character becomes tired, break off from strangling and walk it off- you become less tired by ambling about aimlessly. If you become too hungry or thirsty to continue, just run away or destroy the zombie, {{k|T}}ravel, and then repeat after moving a square and back.

This can also be done at ruins, but you run the risk of weapon-carrying enemies and especially weaponmaster quest-zombies. In an undead ruin, there are also far, far more monsters in the area compared to hunting down a pack of undead animals.

Alternatively, wait until nightfall, and wrestle a sleeping enemy. Sleeping enemies are unconscious, and cannot detect you if you sneak. The autocombat will cause your adventurer to break limbs, grab and release bits of clothing, and other nonlethal attacks. Occasionally random chance will cause a chokehold; simply step back a tile and then resume. In this manner, you can train wrestling extremely quickly without the dangers of wandering in an undead zone.

Yet another alternative is presented by fish. No harmful wrestling moves can be performed on them so cornering a carp, tigerfish, or milkfish will raise wrestling quickly, while training swimming. Avoid hippopotamus infested waters.

A final option presents itself when exploring caves, there are many weak enemies to be found here, choose one (say a ratman) and walk up to it, grabbing it perform a takedown. Before it can stand up grab its arm and try to break it, as soon as it gets up perform another takedown, continue to break all the joints in both of your <s>toy's</s> <s>victim's</s> opponent's arms and then move on to legs, finally gouge out its eyes and begin strangling it to death. This gives you plenty of wrestling exp with very little risk as the enemy will only get in one or two strikes before being taken down after which it will prioritize standing back up.

=== Swimming ===
Having no swimming skill in Adventure Mode is not a particularly good thing if you intend to go near water. Anyone with no swimming skill who falls or is pulled/pushed into water will begin to drown immediately if it is over 4/7 deep, and will also be unable to climb out of water this deep - usually resulting in instant death.

To voluntarily jump into a pond or [[river]] you have to {{k|Alt}}-move off the edge of the land. This will present you with a choice of walking out into the open space above the water (immediately and unsurprisingly followed by a one-story fall) or moving directly into the water. To get back out, {{k|Alt}}-move into the riverbank/pond edge.

As long as you have at least some Swimming skill, you will be able to move around in deeper water and will gain Swimming skill for every tile you move. Without Swimming, you will have to find depth 4 water to voluntarily paddle about in with your water wings on for your first skill points. Any deeper and you'll start to drown, any shallower and you can't swim in it. Hit {{k|m}} to set your swimming options.

Another option is to find a body of water with a ramp into it. Walk down the ramp into the water, which will cause you to start "drowning". However, you can simply walk back out after 10 turns or so to stop drowning, and you will have gained some swimming skill. Repeat until you reach novice skill. If you don't have an abandoned fortress set up for this, slopes into water can be found at ocean beaches.

All in all this makes Novice Swimming an excellent starting skill, as you can (eventually) get Legendary skill simply by swimming back and forth in two squares of water and get lots of stat points in the process. However, this is mind-numbingly dull so good luck with that. One should also keep in mind that water in cooler areas may suddenly freeze when the sun starts to go down, and thus instantly kill any creatures within. As such, it's a good idea to do your training laps somewhere warm.

It also seems that you are not able to move out of water of less than (7/7) onto the river bank. In addition, while you are swimming, you can not move to the travel map! You must first leave the water.

You can crosstrain Ambushing while Swimming to save time- if you start with no Ambushing and Novice Swimming, you will be an Accomplished or Expert Ambusher, give or take, by the time you are a Legendary Swimmer. For more on Ambushing, see below. You can also crosstrain melee skills with swimming by picking a river and swimming down it, training Ambush when it's quiet and training melee when it's not. Some rivers have very high densities of fish, giving you lots of targets to hit. They will tend to gather up, bumping into and slowing each other down ahead of you for you to kill and an adventurer will be all but invincible against non-sturgeons after a few statgains. Just remember that Hippos have the right of way.

NOTE: Water does NOT currently cleanse fire, if you are burning, jumping into a pool of water will not save you

=== Ambushing ===
The Ambusher skill is the parent to the {{k|S}}neak ability, which makes you character move more slowly and stealthily to avoid being noticed. Sneak cannot be activated if an enemy can currently see you, but you can use it immediately if you break line of sight somehow. Sneaking around will increase your Ambusher skill even if nobody is around to see you.

Unfortunately, the best way to train Ambushing is to start sneaking and just hold a direction to run, until you've run 18,000 squares (assuming you started with no skill). This takes a long time, so you may wish to train sneaking just by sneaking whenever possible while playing the game normally in order to avoid boredom.

Sneaking is particularly useful for avoiding ranged attacks, as even Novice skill allows you to get within four or five squares of an enemy before they spot you reliably. It is relatively easy at normal levels of skill to stand anywhere but right next to an enemy and not be spotted for a long time, if ever. However, standing next to sombody without them spotting you is difficult even with legendary skill. However, even if they spot you moving next to them they will only get one shot at you which is a lot better than the hundreds they would have had if you'd been blundering around in the dark too far away to even see them when they opened fire.

If you are far faster than the enemy you can sometimes swoop in, attack, and back off to 1-square distance where you are less visible. Sometimes they will spot you, but other times you can literally slice off the opponent's leg and retreat to a safe distance. This may occur because enemies can only make checks to see if you are sneaking during their own turns, and a very fast (2000+ speed) player can run in, stab them, and retreat to a safe distance before their turn comes up.

The skill also has a valuable part to play in the noble art of running away. As long as you can get out of sight of all the enemies after you at once - such as around a corner indoors, or ducking behind a tree outside - you can start sneaking and head off in another direction. If your skill is too low however the enemies might be close enough to see you as soon as you try to sneak off.

The most useful part of sneaking is undoubtedly the 'stealth throw'. While firing a missile weapon or attacking in melee will get you noticed immediately, throwing things at people will not. Stock up on dead enemies' weapons, clothing and severed body parts and you can pretend you're some gruesome comedy version of Sam Fisher. You know you want to.

=== Armor and Shield Use ===

Armor User lets you wear heavy armor without slowing down, and might control the passive block rate of armor - a very useful skill, if true, because it controls how often your shiny full plate suit will actually work.

Shield User helps the block roll you make when you are attacked. A Legendary Shield User is far, far more capable of taking on enemies, especially projectile-based weaponmasters whose bolts and arrows are blockable with a shield to a far greater degree than with one's torso, so it is worthwhile to train these two skills.

Normally, you gain 10 Shield User XP per time you block an attack with a shield, and 2 Armor User XP per time you are attacked while wearing armor. This means that to gain the 18,000 XP necessary for legendary, you must block 1800 strikes, and be attacked at least 9000 times. Naturally, this could take some time- time in which a low-skill adventurer may die from attacks by worthy opponents.

However, a useful shortcut exists- if you find a small zombie herbavore to strangle in the above wrestling training method, you can also (if it is a small and non-dangerous animal such as a zombie [[groundhog]]) {{k|s}}it down next to it (to minimize your own speed and thus get attacked more often) and hold {{k|5}} to sit down next to the animal and block its attacks over and over. This is still slow, but leagues faster than waiting to train while fighting- it also means that you are probably not in any danger assuming you picked a sufficiently pathetic type of animal.

Warnings- Make sure that you have your {{k|c}}ombat preference set to Close Combat, otherwise you may counterstrike and kill the zombie. This way, you will wrestle it during a counterstrike instead of doing something that may actually hurt it such as counterstriking with your weapon.

It is probably also preferable to start with a modicum of skill in Armor and Shield using to make sure you don't accidentally get instakilled or crippled and are good at blocking with your shield to gain XP fast. You'll also want to have non-crappy armor and a good shield or two (dual wielding shields may increase your ability to block) to maximize your ability to block and to make sure you are taking as little as possible damage, if any at all, during training.

It's also best to train with creatures that attack with their fists, rather than their teeth. A zombie antman or ratman could pound on you all day and never take you past a yellow wound; a groundhog, however, will eventually get lucky and tear out your throat if you wait long enough.

== Exploration ==

=== Basic exploration tips ===
When traveling it’s a good idea to avoid evil areas until you’re reasonably powerful, as they tend to contain stronger enemies. Also avoid caves for this same reason, you never know when a dragon is lurking in the shadows. Remember that only human towns have shops, so don’t die of hunger wandering the dwarves mountain homes looking for that elusive Applebees. Water can be had from rivers and stagnant pools, though fast traveling (shift + t) makes thirst and hunger go away. If you are exploring caves, make sure to have some water and food with you, as some can be quite deep.

When you explore a mountain home you may come across a long, underground passage. Turn back. Unless you are wanting to level up your ambush skill and have brought plenty of food and water, these passages are probably not for you. They go on for a very long ways, occasionally across impassable mountain tiles, and there's a very good chance that you will die of hunger or thirst before you find the exit. You can not enter travel mode while traveling underground, so you do not have that as an escape possibility. On the other hand, they tend to be free of monsters (feel free to sleep on the ground) and if you have managed to kill several critters prior to your adventure you can always drink the blood that is soaking your equipment (but only if dehydrated).

Just a side note, these passages could also contain hidden fun and stuff too, instead of just ending up somewhere else, where you will die.

=== Fortress exploration tips ===
If you’ve abandoned a fortress in the world and you’re now adventuring, you can find that same fortress on the map. Ask townsfolk about the surroundings and eventually they’ll mention the fortress and its direction. From there you need only to follow the directions till the fortress shows up on your map.

==== The perils of fortress exploration ====
If your fortress was abandoned or destroyed there’s more than likely a reason why. Be it magma overflows, flooding, goblin sieges or perhaps digging a little too greedily and too deep there are likely to be remnants of your downfall somewhere in the remains. Wild beasts and sentient invaders alike will more than likely be slugging it out in your once grand halls. Beyond this there is the danger of forgetting what lever does what and accidentally flooding the room with lava or collapsing the entrance.

==== The advantages of Fortress exploration ====
Depending on how advanced your fortress was it may contain extremely rare, powerful or valuables items. Raiding fortresses is the only way to get adamantine items and wafers, as well as the only way to get artifact weapons. Beyond this, you can read the engravings on the walls in order to fill your legends list.

==== Preparation ====
Whatever destroyed your fortress is what is going to be squatting in it now. If a goblin siege took you down, then prepare to fight some gobbies. If the horrors of the deep beat your little dwarven ass then prepare to fight those. If they drowned then find some waterwings etc. Make sure you’re fully stocked on arrows (if you use them) as well as water and food. Leaving anything you don’t need back in the tavern in town is a good idea too, as it lets you carry more loot.

==== Plumbing the Deep ====

While wandering the halls of your old fortress its best to secure each floor one by one, to avoid being ambushed. Explore one entire floor then move on to the next. This isn’t a requirement but it can help in finding the best loot as well as insuring against surprise attacks from that hidden monster or monsters you managed to overlook. If you start to get overburdened with all the loot, climb to a secure floor and dump it in a pile. You can come back for it after you’ve finished exploring. Also note that, while traps no longer work, their components (giants blades, spiked balls etc) remain just as lethal in your hands. Also note that you can pick up and throw ballista arrows.

==== What to do with all your newly acquired wealth ====

Not much I’m afraid. While masterwork adamantine weapons are very useful and the raw chunks of adamantine are extremely valuable there’s nothing to really buy with them. The adamantine weapons you find are the strongest in the game and shops will never sell anything above iron so once you’ve got the weapons there’s pretty much nothing more you need. This will most likely be fixed in up coming versions (perhaps paying a blacksmith to make you weapons).

=== Summary ===
*Avoid flying arrows
*Throw rocks/statues/socks/AIDS/bugs/sand/coins/arms/heads/swords/arrows/kitchen sinks at enemies that still haven't reached you
*Train your stats before taking on your first quest-monster

[[Category:Guides]]
[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T22:10:12Z

Dudemcman: /* U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. More information on it can be found [[Tower-cap|here]]

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technologist</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T22:06:55Z

Dudemcman: /* Tower-cap Farm */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. More information on it can be found [[Tower-cap|here]]

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technology</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T22:05:47Z

Dudemcman: /* Tower-cap Farm */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. More information on it can be found [[Tower-cap|Here]]

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technology</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T22:04:32Z

Dudemcman: /* Tower-cap Farm */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate. More information on it can be found [http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Tower-cap Here]

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technology</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T21:32:04Z

Dudemcman: /* Dam */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how many bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technology</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Stupid dwarf trick

2010-03-23T21:31:21Z

Dudemcman: /* Dam */

{{av}}
{{D for Dwarf}}

A '''stupid dwarf trick''' is any project that requires a large amount time and effort - often for little or no practical benefit. They exist only as a challenge for experienced players.

==Adventure Mode Fortress==

Build a fortress specifically for exploring in [[adventure mode]]. You can either make a nasty monster-filled challenge, or a Smörgåsbord of masterpiece steel weapons and armor. Possibly both. A [[chasm]], underground [[river]], or [[hidden fun stuff]] can ensure the fortress is occupied.

'''Difficulty:''' The sky's the limit.

'''Usefulness:''' Not applicable.

==Alarm Clock==
Are your soldiers all sound asleep while blood soaks the walls? No need to deconstruct their beds one by one, ''if'' you bought the Dwarf Wakey 3000! Simply a solitary floor tile balanced on a support, one or more can be toppled with the pull of a lever to produce an earth-shaking racket that'll have them leaping for their axes!

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low.

==Aqueduct Power==
If your river's a long way away from your fortress, building a trans-map axle may be less efficient than building an aqueduct and pump stack driven by waterwheels in the river. The pump stack raises it to the height of your fort, where it flows through the long, long aqueduct and drives waterwheels on the other end. Getting the water pressure just right so it powers your waterwheel without flooding the fort can be [[Fun]]. Diagonal channels make good pressure reducers.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Lots of stone, lots of engineering, lots of dangerous outdoor work, lots of trial-and-error for the receiving waterwheels.

'''Usefulness:''' High. As much water and power as you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

==Watervator==
By creating a vertical "Hydraulic Elevation and Lowering Platform" chamber (A H.E.L.P. Chamber, so named for the cries of the passenger dwarf) with lever controlled water levels, you can move a dwarf up several z-levels without any stairs. All it takes is the dwarf's ability to swim up to the surface of the water to breathe.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Moderate possibility of Fun by way of flooding your fortress. Any dwarves that can't swim will instead experience Fun when using the Watervator. The actual construction time and resource usage is very low. Using the Watervator often leads to unhappy thoughts about drowning

'''Usefulness:''' Low to Medium. The Watervator requires manual micromanaging, while stairs do not. On the other hand, it can be used to create a pathway that most enemies will simply be unable to use. Those that can would still be doing so at great risk of drowning or falling to their death

==Aquifer Power==
Aquifers can be a resource of immense power. If you have two levels of aquifer, you can generate a continuous flow by draining one level of aquifer into another and plant waterwheels above it. One stream can power a lot of wheels.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Anything to do with draining aquifers is very [[Fun]].

'''Usefulness:''' High. The lowly windmill pales in utility compared to a waterwheel.

==Artificial Waterfall==
To keep the waterfall going, you need a [[pump]] stack, preferably powered by a [[windmill]] or [[water wheel]].

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Dwarves love [[waterfall]]s. Putting a waterfall in your [[meeting hall]] will give your dwarves good [[thought]]s, although it can significantly lower framerate.

==[[Ballista]] Battery==
Overlap a few ballistas to completely cover a narrow corridor. There is an unavoidable risk of your operators wandering into the line of fire.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. If you insist on highly-trained operators with high-quality ballistas, it gets harder.

'''Usefulness:''' A complicated and dangerous way to defend a single corridor. Ultimately extremely effective. Sometimes.

==Bridge-a-pult==
A bridge that opens outwards, to fling enemies away. Ideally, they land in a very nasty place.

'''Difficulty:''' The hard part is the nasty place they get flung to.

'''Usefulness:''' There are a far more effective ways to defend a fortress, but few are as entertaining.

==Dam==
Build a wall across a riverbed to stop the flow of water. Floodgates optional.

Bonus: excavate a reservoir and a lower river valley 
Bonus: build a control center to control the water flow 
Bonus: draw your entire energy from a power station within

'''Difficulty:''' On a map that freezes in the winter, this is easy. Otherwise, very difficult. (See [[dam]], or Moses effect, below. But with the bonuses it gets a bit harder.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on how much bonuses you fullfill. The Power station is obvious, and with the control room you could build up a nice defense system.

==Doberman Launcher==
Whenever a dog or cat gives birth, stuff all the kittens and puppies in one cage in your entryway. Link this cage to a pressure plate beside it. Should your last lines of defense be breached, goblins will step on it and in the next instant be torn apart by dozens of goblin-seeking hostiles and distracted by dozens of surplus targets. The trap actually going off will probably be very bad for your framerate. Bonus: Train all dogs inside as wardogs when they mature. Super bonus: Make it a Bear Trap. MEGADWARF bonus: Combine with a drowning chamber and carp trap.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium, potentially fortress-saving

==Drowning Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' You can kill prisoners, useless peasants, irate nobles, hammerers, untrainable animals, or anything else.

==[[Computing|Dwarfputer]] Complex==
A big mess of fluid and/or machine logic full of hatches, floodgates, gears, pumps, etc. and powered by waterwheels, windmills, or useless idle dwarves. Hook it up to doors, bridges, and traps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium to high, depending on what you want to build. You'll want to build for very high water flow if you have more than a few fluid gates.

'''Usefulness:''' Your mechanics and architects will level up very fast. Manual pumps give something for your haulers to do and makes them stronger. Try and make a clock to trigger different mechanisms in different seasons. See if enemies actually blunder into your intricate traps. Watch all hell break loose as water freezes.

==Dwarven Apartment Complex==
Essentially, one of the many possible [[mega constructions]] dedicated to providing dwarves with rooms so high above the ground they get vertigo. Every floor must have plenty of rooms of at least 2x3 squares, with walls and a door surrounding this. Oh, and it has to go up as many Z-levels as possible. For extra credit, decide on what the top story will be (i.e. as many levels up as you deem possible, minus one so you can build a roof) and turn this into a Royal bedroom for a [[noble]], complete with gem windows, artifact/masterwork components, and untold numbers of armour stands and weapon racks. And then build some shorter but wider apartment buildings nearby to turn your fortress into essentially a giant fist with extended middle finger. Extra points for adding extra useless things for luxury, such as a magma-based heating system, fireplaces in rooms, and a lock-down lever in case of goblin attack. (or a self-destruct lever connected to the main supports, in case your dwarfish tenants are unsatisfied with your 5-star service.

'''Difficulty:''' Low, although the walls around the rooms can be a bit fiddly due to the impossibility of building walls on constructed floors (yes, an extra credit challenge is to do this without using Remove Construction).

'''Usefulness:''' Limited, because you could just dig the things underground and save yourself the hassle. However it is much harder to flood a tower than a cave, in case you're prone to fun by water.

==Execution Tower==
Just a tall tower to chuck your captives to their deaths.

'''Difficulty:''' Easy.

'''Usefulness:''' Lets you dispose of prisoners, and claim expensive silk, meltable iron, and (eventually) useful bones. Also highly amusing.

==Flood the World==
'''Difficulty:''' High danger. Will kill your frame rate.

'''Usefulness:''' Will prevent any sieges, at least. Or anything else, save for the occasional invasion of sociopathic [[Carp]].

==Gladiator Arena==
Station some soldiers at the bottom of a shallow [[Activity_zone#Pit/Pond|pit]] and dump your captives in. You can also use dangerous animals instead of soldiers. For extra points, put the prisoners in cages connected to ramps underneath the arena floor. One lever will open both the cage and a hatch above the ramp.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate, but time consuming. Some danger depending on the relative skill of your soldiers and the danger of the captive.

'''Usefulness:''' The most difficult way to dispose of prisoners. It does give your soldiers a little bit of experience.

==Glass Ceiling==
Sick of having your dwarfs vomit all the time when they go out to retrieve loot or lumber? Despair no more! Build an almost-infinitely tall tower, and then put a glass floor on the highest level, spanning the entire map. For extra kicks, make a mechanism that will crash the entire thing upon the heads of the one goblin horde that manages to get through all your other deathtraps.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Very grueling.

'''Usefulness:''' Low, but potentially fortress-saving. (see above)

==Greenhouse==
A [[greenhouse]] is just a farm with the the ceiling channeled out from above. This lets you grow outdoor plants without venturing above ground. For maximum style, build the greenhouse above ground and cover it with a glass roof to keep your farmers safe.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Surface plants can be grown at any time of the year, and some are more useful than those available underground - for example, [[sun berry|sun berries]] can be brewed into valuable [[Sunshine]], and [[whip vine]]s can be milled into superior quality flour. Having greater food and booze diversity can also keep your dwarves happier.

==Hammer of [[Armok]]==
A gigantic hammer made out of pure steel and/or valuables looming over your fortress entrance ready to smite those foolish enough to lay a siege on you. Also, gives you a psychological advantage over the traders who unload their goods under it. Attach to a lever-linked support for quicksmiting, or any other single-tile collapse mechanism. BONUS: Cover it with blood.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. Depends on size, materials and magma's existence, though. Make it a gold hammer menacing with adamantine spikes, if you're going for high quality.

'''Usefulness:''' Low-medium. 10x10 size is minimum for practical effectiveness. 30x30 hammer extending handles length from your entrance actually works against sieges.

==Ice tower==

Building a huge tower is easy. To make things more [[fun]], make one out of some exotic material, like [[glass]], [[ice]], [[gold]], or [[soap]].

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You need to be on a freezing map to pull off an ice tower.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

=="I dinna say we wurren't crazy!"==

Build a huge room with nothing in it except rock pillars, then dig channels on the levels above and below it until you have a ridiculously huge room ten Z-levels in height. Inspired by Irregular Webcomic.

'''Difficulty:''' Mainly in putting up with the incessant channelling, and avoiding dropping large chunks of ceiling onto the floor from five levels up.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative, due to the insane amounts of space it takes up.

==It's A TRAP!==
It seems that [[traps]] are buildable outside. This provides for numerous opportunities. The first that comes to mind is to trap the entire outside world of your embarkation point. This will make your sieges very amusing, as a hundred high-level goblins rush onto the field and are immediately shredded into ribbons by invisible traps before even seeing one dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Depending on the size of your embarkation point, this may involve placing thousands of traps. Depending on the type of trap, that may involve making tens of thousands of trap components.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Sieges will be instantaneous, and if you use cage traps, your [[arena]] will never want for combatants, including all those pesky wild animals you no longer need to hunt for.

==It's A CRAP!==
CRAP: Carp trap...wait, why are you laughing? Anyway, here what you do.

Capture some carp in terrarium cage trap. If you don't die instantly, tame them. Then dump them in your moat and breed them.
All the little goblins (or Orcs) coming toward you in a massive siege must be directed into your moat. When they fall in, they
become (goblin chunk). Laugh maniacally.

BONUS: Edit the raws to make carps eat their kills.

'''Difficulty''': Like going within two tiles of a carp infested river and surviving.
'''Usefulness''': Questionable

==Journey to the Center of the Earth==

Construct a sturdy vessel hanging over the top of a magma pipe or volcano, outfitted with everything your intrepid crew might need for their journey of exploration - food, booze, sleeping quarters and a bridge a must, but depending on the amount of effort it can include other items such as a recreation deck, water reservoir and trade depot for dealing with the natives. When all is ready, lock the explorers inside and send them on their way. Bonus points if you can detach it from inside so you can use it in Adventure mode later.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate to High, depending on the size of the ship. For bonus points, carve the entire thing out of existing rock overhanging a magma pipe and engrave it with messages. The main problem is getting the whole crew inside at the same time - separate sleeping quarters help here.

'''Usefulness:''' Negative. For some reason, no explorers have returned. Of course, if you select only the [[Nobles | Best and Brightest]] for the ship's crew...

==Labyrinth==

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike. [[Trap]]s and dangerous animals are essential. You can have a retracting bridge drop invaders in, or just have a labyrinth as a back door.

'''Difficulty:''' It's a lot of mining. Having a bridge drop invaders inside is more difficult, but more useful.

'''Usefulness:''' It makes a nice element of fortress defense, and you can dump your prisoners inside it. Also makes a great place to explore in [[adventure mode]].

*BONUS: Generate a world with large mountain [[cave]]s. Instead of using the labyrinth as your backdoor, use it as your fortress.

==Magma Chamber==
'''Difficulty:''' Dangerous as any magma project.

'''Usefulness:''' It's like a drowning chamber, but any non-iron items carried by the victim will be destroyed. Depending on your style of play, this may be a good thing.

==Magma Cannon==
[http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33837.0 It can be done!] It uses a row of pumps to pressurize the magma in a chamber with only one exit. When the floodgate opens, the magma flies out a short distance.

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. You need [[metal]] (or [[glass]]) [[screw pump]]s to make it work, [[magma-safe]] floodgates and mechanisms, plus a big above-ground construction.

'''Usefulness:''' Marginal. But very cool.

==Magma Mausoleum==
This trick involves dripping water on to the middle of a magma pool until you have a column of obsidian, then channeling down into the obsidian ''more than'' one Z level, and putting a burial receptacle there. This probably won't work in magma tubes or Volcanos since the created obsidian would fall into the bottomless pit. The trick is getting the water to fall onto the magma in a controlled manner. Bonus points for each additional level down you manage to place the coffin.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Requires certain resources from the start, plus lots of setup. And your dwarves tend to erupt into dwarf steam occasionally.

'''Usefulness:''' None, since an obsidian lined room with the exact same furniture somewhere else will please your nobles just as much.

==Magma Pumping==
It's a lot like pumping water, only more dangerous, and requires the [[screw pump|pumps]] to use [[magma-proof]] pipes and screws in their construction.

'''Difficulty:''' The difficult part is making all those [[iron]] or [[steel]] pumps and [[bauxite]] [[floodgate]]s. Very high risk.

'''Usefulness:''' Magma is fun, but also [[Fun]].

==Mega/Water Drowning Trap-Thing==
This is basically a channel above some pressurized water with a short tunnel leading to a door. The door needs to be connected to a lever somewhere in a safe part of the fortress. Position the door facing the main stairs into your fortress (for multiple stairs use multiple traps). When enemies come down the stairs, pull the lever and make them drown. (It helps to seal off the rooms).

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Needs flowing water under pressure and levers.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium. Depends on the size of your fortress/defences/amount of attackers. Works well with fire demons to create a sauna.

==Monumental Statue==

'''Difficulty:''' Depends on how big you want the statue to be. If you are feeling really masochistic, cast it out of obsidian using magma and water.

'''Usefulness:''' None.

*BONUS:Make the statue hollow and have dwarves live inside it.

==Moses Effect==
With enough pumps, you can pull water out of a square faster than it flows in. This can create a reverse waterfall, or a dry spot in the middle of a flowing river. The effect is like Moses parting the Red Sea.

'''Difficulty:''' Surprisingly easy.

'''Usefulness:''' You can use this trick to create a waterfall or drowning chamber. It is also important if you want to pass through an [[Aquifer]], although that is far more difficult.

==[[Obsidian]] factory==
You need one reservoir of water, and one of magma. Mix, cool, mine, and repeat as necessary.

'''Difficulty:''' Medium.

'''Usefulness:''' Obsidian is 50% more valuable than [[flux]] and 3 times as valuable as ordinary stone, making it ideal for your [[mason]]s and [[stone crafter]]s. Done properly, it can also serve as a magma chamber ''and'' a drowning chamber.

==Pit o' Doom==
Combine with an Execution Tower for maximum z-level executions! Spike traps are a must.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. You want it nice and deep though.

'''Usefulness:''' Dispose of prisoners, execute nobles, gruesome fatal injuries, laugh maniacally.

==Pressure Washer==
A huge tower with floodgates at the bottom on one side. When opened, the pressurized water fires out and pushes anything in the way of the flow away. Depending on size, can be surprisingly powerful. You can see an example tower [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7485-griffonwind here]

'''Difficulty:''' Medium, construction technique takes some consideration.

'''Usefulness:''' Medium-High. Tested with 50 recruits standing infront of it when the floodgates opened, killed 46 of them, including ones not pushed into the pit.

BONUS: Fill it with Magma instead (though Magma doesn't pressurize).

==Self Destruct Lever==
A mechanism that, for example, could flood your fort with magma, or release a trapped megabeast. For bonus points, build the whole fort on a single [[support]].

'''Difficulty:''' Very high. Extremely dangerous.

'''Usefulness:''' None, by definition, but highly amusing.

==[[Swimming]] pool==
It's a reservoir that fills to 4/7 exactly. Station soldiers inside, lock them in, and fill. This way they gain [[swimming]] skill.

'''Difficulty:''' Low. It's just a pair of reservoirs.

'''Usefulness:''' The swimming skill is only slightly useful. This is most useful if the entrance to your fort has narrow walkways/moats surrounded by water, and you station your soldiers there. It does help gain attributes though.

==[[Tower-cap]] Farm==
You absolutely need to break into an underground river or lake. Make some muddy floors over a big area and wait.

'''Difficulty:''' Moderate.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size - bigger is better.

==Town Destroyer==
Start your fortress in an area with an existing settlement. Create a channel all the way around it, then dig out everything on the Z-level below and watch it obliterate itself (and probably your framerate).

'''Difficulty:''' Low to medium. It's not hard, just very time-consuming.

'''Usefulness:''' Very low.

==Underground Perpetual Motion Power Plant==
Combine with a use for the power and you either have an awesome setup, or a ticking time bomb.

'''Difficulty:''' High. Maintaining the correct water level is annoying difficult at times.

'''Usefulness:''' Depends on size of plant and what it's connected to. Also useful as a puzzle for adventurers.

==Underwater Statue room==
A simple room filled with statues that just also happens to be flooded. Simply dig a room near to a water soure smooth and engrave the walls and floors than fill with statues. Dig a tunnel to the water source and a separate escape route. seal both off with floodgates pull the levers in the right order and bam underwater statue room. For added effect make the meeting room a room directly above with a glass floor.

'''Difficulty:'''Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Absolutely positively none.

==Vomitorium==
Prevents [[cave adaption]]. It's like the greenhouse, only instead of a farm, it's [[meeting hall]] or [[barracks]]. Since you can't build [[table]]s or [[bed]]s outside, build the room and [[channel]] down to it, or build a [[bridge]] or two over the top.

'''Difficulty:''' Low.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Make sure to wall the pit in or it will become very [[Fun]] once [[goblin]] archers become involved.

==Rehabilitation Centre==
Had any problems with dwarves charging brainlessly towards the enemy, getting slaughtered, and then starting a tantrum spiral that will destroy your fortress? Turn your prison into a luxurious room full of things that make dwarves happy. Add artifact furniture, beds, a booze stockpile, chains made of gold (or anything valuable,) a waterfall, creatures in cages, etc. Hopefully they will return to society as a happy, productive dwarf.

'''Difficulty:''' Low-Medium. Acquiring valuable items and setting up the waterfall can be annoying sometimes. Also you need guards to actually put them in jail. And it can be a real pain when those ungrateful sobs destroy the nice furniture you give them.

'''Usefulness:''' High. A tantrum spiral can quickly turn a productive fort of 200+ dwarves into a rioting fortress inhabited by a bunch of insane, miserable dwarves who spend their time punching people and breaking furniture. Don't let it happen to you.

==U.R.I.S.T. Artificial Intelligence==
Basically, a dwarf in a bunker that controls your fortress. Being that there are no supercomputers in DF at the moment, we'll have to use the closest substitute, a dwarf. Seal your dwarf in a room full of levers that activate various floodgates, bridges, doors, hatch covers, traps, etc. Make sure this room has no exits or entrances, but it needs a luxurious bedroom and dining area, and you must include a chute for dropping in <s>food</s> biomass and <s>alcohol</s> coolant fluid. Profile the levers so that they can only be used by the A.I. dwarf.

It would be a good idea to make the system into two rooms. The food/drink/bed room and the lever room. Should you need to add more levers, you can lock the A.I. dwarf outside the lever room and have your mechanics set up more levers without interacting with or releasing the A.I.

You can make the lodging room suited for the particular dwarf by adding furniture made from their favorite materials, and smoothing and engraving everything. Use quantum stockpiling to give them 10+ years of food and drink. Make sure the A.I. is unable to communicate with other dwarves. His/her mood must not be affected by the deaths of the walking meat-bags who tried to befriended him/her.

You must also make a snazzy/lame acronym name for your AI, here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>U.R.I.S.T. - Underground Reasonably Intelligent Settlement Technology</li>
<li>N.O.B.L.E. - Narcissistic Obnoxious Boastful Laughable Excrement </li>
<li>M.A.G.M.A. - Massively Alcoholic Gear-Machine Assembly</li>
<li>A.R.M.O.K. - All-Reaching Master Of Killing</li>
<li>A.S.S. - Almost-autonomous Systems Selector</li>
<li>D.I.E.D. - Dedicated Irrigation and Everything else Device</li>

</ul>

'''Difficulty:''' Medium. Setting up all the levers and lodgings can be a micromanagement hassle. Further research is required as to how well the A.I. will fit into a dwarven economy.

'''Usefulness:''' High. Having a dwarf dedicated to pulling levers will ensure that they are pulled on time. Additionally, you will have a constantly-ecstatic dwarf who is virtually invulnerable to all threats. Should your fortress be slaughtered by invaders or drowned by flooding or tantrum spiraled, your fortress will be preserved until more migrants arrive, or the AI runs out of food.

==Day Care==
A room where you put all your dwarf children so they cannot be kidnapped by snatchers. Make a suicide booth setup that drops the child into a room with beds and tables and stuff. Remember to include a food chute to quantum stockpile a huge amount of food and alcohol on a 1x1 stockpile (so it doesn't rot) in the room. Note that the children will no longer be able to perform certain useful tasks like crop harvesting and deconstruction, and will not level up their skill in various professions like an otherwise kidnappable child, but this is a small tradeoff if they usually get kidnapped before maturing anyway.

'''Difficulty:''' Low but annoying. You may have to micromanage to get every child into the room, and it'll be a hassle to get the grown ones out without releasing all of them.

'''Usefulness:''' Low. Protecting the children may be more trouble than it's worth

40d:Military

2010-03-21T17:25:26Z

Dudemcman: /* Choosing weapons and armour */

Your '''military''' comprises the [[soldiers]] of your fortress. Pressing {{k|m}} will bring you to the '''military screen''', which lists your active soldiers ''by squad'' at the top of the screen, and potential draftees below them.

If a dwarf is "complaining about the draft", it has nothing to do with lack of doors on bedrooms - see "drafting", below.

== About drafting ==
To get your dwarves to fight instead of fleeing when confronted with anything remotely dangerous you need to '''{{k|A}}ctivate''' or '''draft''' them.

You can draft any non-[[noble]] [[dwarf]] in your fortress one of two ways: either 1) through the {{k|m}}ilitary screen by then pressing {{k|a}} on the dwarf in question, or 2) you can select a dwarf using {{k|v}} -> {{k|p}}, and then press {{k|A}} ( that's capitalized, {{k|Shift}} + {{k|a}} ) to draft him or her. A dwarf that has not yet reached [[Soldier#Heroes_and_Champions|hero]] or [[Soldier#Heroes_and_Champions|champion]] status may be un-drafted by the same method.

Note that Activating any member of a '''squad''' will activate all members in that squad, and adding a non-Active member will automatically Activate them. Likewise de-Activating one member will de-Activate all members of a squad.

If you draft dwarves without any (non-dabbling) combat skills, it will generally give them an unhappy [[thought]] and they will complain "about the draft". Likewise, dwarves with no (non-dabbling) [[civilian]] skills will not like being de-Activated.

Immigrant [[nobles]] will not show up in the military screen, and cannot be drafted. Appointed administrators do appear on the list, and can be drafted. However their military duties will interfere with their civilian ones, making it unwise to draft your administrators (the [[sheriff]] being a notable exception). It is worth noting that drafting the dwarf whom the [[liaison]] has targeted will cause said dwarf to cease all other non-priority activities (i.e. everything but eating, drinking, resting, sleeping, etc.) and will proceed to Conduct Meeting.

Dwarves who are in a [[strange mood]] can not be drafted and neither can dwarves who are affected by an [[insanity]] following a failed [[strange mood]]. Drafting a dwarf who is throwing a [[tantrum]] for another reason may work and may also cancel the [[tantrum]]. {{verify}}

==Military Screen==
Pressing {{k|m}} will lead you to the military screen. Here you can assign individual dwarves different weapons and armor to seek out when they are Activated. You can also create squads and give those squads standing orders to follow when on duty, and determine which squads are, in fact, "on duty" and which are "standing down" and training their skills.

=== Promotion / squads ===
Creating a squad consists of selecting a leader for a squad and then selecting the members of that squad. This is done by highlighting a dwarf and pressing {{k|Enter}} on recruits. Note that Activating (or de-Activating) any member of a squad will do the same for all members in that squad, and adding a non-Active member will automatically Activate them. Removing an active member will simply put them in their own active squad of 1. De-activated squads otherwise have no effect on civilian dwarves.

# Select the dwarf you want to be squad leader, using either the up/down arrow keys, or {{k|8}}/{{k|2}} (or {{k|9}}/{{k|3}} to jump a screen) on the keypad.
# Press {{k|Enter}} (-> promote).
# Use arrow or number keys to select the dwarf you want to be his subordinate.
# Press {{k|Enter}}.
# Repeat for each dwarf you want in the squad.
# Press {{k|Space}} to exit promotion mode.

To remove a dwarf from a squad select them and then press {{k|Enter}} again.

Complex chains of command can be created this way if the first dwarf you selected was already in a squad (he'll become leader of a sub-squad), though it is unknown if this has any current use.

Note that there are restrictions to who can lead whom, based on weapons-skill: you can't make a hero subordinate to a normal military dwarf, nor a champion subordinate to anyone other than another champion, nor any non-recruit soldier subordinate to a recruit. Dwarves who become heroes will automatically become leaders of their squads if the current leader is less experienced.

===Squad Orders===
If you then highlight a dwarf in the military screen and press {{k|v}}iew squad, you are viewing the entire squad that dwarf belongs to, whether that's 1 dwarf or dozens. Changes to the orders for that squad include:

:* {{k|f}}ood carried - active dwarves will seek out a [[backpack]] and then either 1 or 2 food rations. This prevents active dwarves from leaving their posts or patrols and returning to the main fortress to seek food to [[eat]]. However, it does significantly increase the time it takes for a newly activated dwarf to report to their designated station.

:* {{k|w}}ater carried - active dwarves will seek out a [[water skin]] and then fill it from a nearby source of drinking [[water]]. This prevents active dwarves from leaving their posts or patrols and returning to the main fortress to seek something to [[drink]]. However, it does significantly increase the time it takes for a newly activated dwarf to report to their designated station, and may cause them to leave the fortress in search of water. Dwarves need [[alcohol]] to get them through the day - military dwarves forced to stay on duty with nothing but water will soon have very unhappy [[thought]]s. ''(It is reported that carrying [[booze]] will be an option in the upcoming [[DF 2010]] version.)''

:* {{k|s}}leep - "in barracks", "in room", or "on ground". This designates where active military will sleep. If "on ground", then they will fall unconscious and sleep at their station, possibly even if a fight is raging around them. (Pro tip: Sleeping dwarves do not defend themselves well against attack.)

:* {{k|c}}hase opponent (vs.) stay close to station. A squad that "chases opponents" will pursue a target dozens of tiles from their assigned station before determining they are "too far" away - a squad that stays close to their station will give up a chase much sooner and return to where they have been assigned. If micro-managing a combat, it is not difficult to move stations (see below) so that squads with either order will not give up a chase.

:* {{k|a}} - (probably for "attack") - This order is either "ignore wild animals if possible" or "harasses dangerous wild animals". Just what it says, but includes any [[creature]] that is listed as an "enemy", including [[invader]]s. Useful if one member of a squad is waiting for backup before an attack is launched. Dwarves ordered to ignore wild animals will fight to defend themselves. Note that some clearly "dangerous" animals are not seen as "enemies" until they attack.(examples?)

:* {{k|t}}raining - squad is either on duty and will report to their designated station or patrol, or is standing down and so will [[spar]] or [[train]] with crossbows.

:* {{k|z}}oom to commander - Any squad will tend to follow their commander, despite any ongoing combat or designated station. If that commander is [[sleep]]ing, [[eat]]ing, [[drink]]ing, [[on break]] or picking up equipment, the squad will tend to be gathered around them, waiting for their fearless leader. If you find the commander, you will usually find the majority of the squad, or where they are headed at the moment.

=== Choosing weapons and armour ===
Pressing {{k|m}} and then {{k|w}} will show you a screen containing:
*Shortened names for [[weapon]] types.

-Unm=none
-Axe=[[Axe]]
-Cbw=[[Crossbow]]
-Ham=[[Hammer]]
-Spr=[[Spear]]
-Swd=[[Sword]]
*A number indicating the number of weapons you want them to carry (note: this is not dual wielding, this is the dwarf carrying a backup weapon slung across their back in case the first weapon becomes stuck in a combatant)
*A shortened name for the level of [[armour]] they should aim to wear ('''L'''ea'''th'''er, '''Ch'''ai'''n''', '''Pl'''a'''t'''e) and the [[shield]] they should carry ('''B'''uc'''kl'''er, '''Sh'''iel'''d''').
Note: Giving a dwarf a weapon will affect their non-military professions, if the weapon in question conflicts with their [[labor]] tasks. For instance, issuing a [[mace]] to a dwarf will cause them to discard an axe they were carrying for woodcutting, or a [[pick]] they were using for mining.

When a dwarf is drafted into the army he or she will go pick up his or her equipment, if it is available (a dwarf set to fight with a [[sword]] will fight unarmed until a sword is forged), and when released back to civilian life, will drop this equipment. Exceptions being dwarves with the '[[woodcutter]]' labor enabled who carry an axe while in civilian mode, and dwarves with the 'hunting' labor enabled who carry a [[crossbow]] and leather armour while in civilian mode.

[[Miner]]s set to fight unarmed will use their [[pick]] as a weapon, and get damage bonuses from their Mining skill level.

''(Note that the "dual weapon" code is currently{{v|0.28.181.40d}} broken - see [[Talk:Dual_wielding]])''

==== Swapping weapons and armour ====
Frustratingly, a soldier will not necessarily choose the best-[[quality]] weapon available. Thus a speardwarf might choose a -[[bronze]] [[spear]]- rather than a ≡[[steel]] spear≡ if given the chance. A marksdwarf might pick up a single [[iron]] [[bolt]] rather than your stack of *steel bolts [25]*. When equipping your dwarves for active duty, you will generally want them to use the best weapons available; when dwarves are set to spar, you generally want them to use the worst weapons available. Unless you are saving your good armour for a certain dwarf, you will always want your soldiers to be equipped with the best possible armour.

Swapping weapons and armour is a frustrating and somewhat time-consuming process. It is easiest if you make different [[stockpile|stockpiles]] for your best and your worst-quality weapons. Creating a stockpile only for high-quality steel and iron weapons or armour will make it easier to find the weapon or armour you want to give your dwarf. Likewise, a special stockpile for low-quality [[silver]] or [[wood]]en weapons will make it easier to assign the right sparring weapon.

There are two ways to swap weapons and armour. The simpler way is to use the {{k|m}}ilitary menu. This process will let you swap out your soldier's weapon or ''entire'' suit of armour:
#Press {{k|m}} to access the military menu.
#Find the soldier whose weapon or armour you want to remove, and set them to Unarmed or armour- and shield-less.
#Watch the soldier until he or she removes his or her equipment.
#Next, {{k|d}}esignate all of your current weapons or armour (hopefully all of which are in your stockpiles)) as {{k|f}}orbidden. Then manually find the weapon or [[armour piece]](s) that you want your dwarf to pick up, and {{k|d}}esignate it, or them, to be re{{k|c}}laimed.
#Return to the military menu and re-designate the soldier to have the weapon and/or armour you want.
#Wait until your newly-naked dwarf realizes his or her situation and decides to Pickup Equipment. If you have properly forbidden all other weapons or armour, the dwarf should make a beeline for your weapons or armour stockpile, and don the right item(s).
#Reclaim your stockpiles of weapons or armour for regular use.

The other way to swap out weapons or armour, which is particularly useful to replace an individual piece of armour but not the entire suit, is as follows:

#Make sure you have an area (any area) assigned as a garbage [[dump]].
#Find the soldier whose weapon or armour you want to replace by using the {{k|v}}iew command and going to the dwarf's {{k|i}}nventory. Select each item you want the soldier to get rid of, then hit Enter to view it. Press {{k|d}} to mark it for dumping. When you select an item to be dumped, it will create a hauling job for a civilian dwarf, who should presently arrive to cart the weapon off to your junk pile. If you want to save the weapon, catch the hauler before he or she reaches your dump and un-designate the weapon; alternatively, find it in the dump and reclaim it.
#As with step 4 above, {{k|d}}esignate all of your current weapons or armour as {{k|f}}orbidden. Manually find the weapon or [[armour piece]](s) that you want your dwarf to pick up, and {{k|d}}esignate it, or them, to be re{{k|c}}laimed.
#As with step 5 above, wait until your newly-naked dwarf realizes his or her situation and picks up the proper equipment.
#Reclaim your stockpiles of weapons or armour for regular use.

== Controlling your squads ==
By pressing {{k|x}} you will select squads near your marker. You can {{k|s}}tation the squads at the current cursor position if the squad in question is on-duty. You can also place {{k|p}}atrol points, which creates a path for the soldier to follow. The last patrol point placed will always be connected back to the first in a loop. Pressing {{k|x}} again after placing patrol points will remove the entire path. Setting a patrol for a squad leader will set all dwarves in that squad to that patrol. Dwarves will keep their old patrols when assigned to a new squad, so a number of dwarves can be given individual patrols, and then put into a single squad so as to activate them all at once. Squads will fight and pursue hostile [[creatures]] until they or the enemies are dead or the squad moves too far from its station. Squads can be set to pursue regardless of how far they move from their station and to attack wild animals (along with various other options) via the {{k|m}}ilitary screen, in the {{k|v}}iew squad submenu. For more information on fighting, see [[combat]].

== Equipment and encumbrance ==
{{main|Equipment and encumbrance}}
Depending on what equipment you outfit your soldiers with, they can easily become [[encumbrance|encumbered]]. A new recruit with no strength [[attribute]], for instance, can only carry 2000Γ before being encumbered, which is less than the weight of a full suit of chain mail. A crossbow plus a full stack of metal bolts can weigh as much as 1000Γ by itself.

== Food and water==
Under the {{k|v}}iew squad menu, you can order squads to carry [[water]] and/or [[food]] along with them. To carry water the dwarves need access to [[waterskin]]s, and to carry food they need [[backpack]]s. This can be useful when sending your military out on long patrols, but has drawbacks. See [[Military#Squad Orders|Squad Orders]], above.

== Training / sparring ==
Wrestling or melee weapon-equipped squads that you marked as "standing down" by the squad-management screen in the {{k|m}}ilitary screen will head to the [[barracks]] and begin [[sparring]] to train their skills. Soldiers with crossbows will go to a [[archery target|shooting range]] to practice.

How to increase soldier skills is covered in-depth in the [[sparring]] article. You may also want to peruse the [[cross-training]] article, which covers how to beef up your recruits most efficiently, and how to support army's logistic needs best.

==See also==
*[[Army arc]]
*[[Assign animal]]

{{Military FAQ}}

[[Category:Military| ]]
[[Category:Fortress defense]]