man this irrigating makes my farm size much smaller.

How so?

You mean having to irrigate underground soil first now?

Personally it's either the bucket way to get a 4X4 field down or the whole irrigation channel involving brook/channels/floodgate stuff for whatever size I want.
Getting a farm started is usually the first thing I dig once I have dug a few rooms for my initial piles/meeting hall.

I usually play around with PerfectWorld mod though to get a map with a brook/river, a Volcano AND a sedimentary layer for Iron/Steel/Flux, I highly recommend it

Still having lots of trouble with my military though, the damn Urists gain skills wayyyy too slow

I read the wiki and I still don't understand how to use the bucket tactic.

I just build a farm next to a murky pool and flood it.

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Added on August 7, 2010, 12:54 pmalso i dont know how to use perfect world.

This post has been edited by justinlee999: Aug 7 2010, 12:54 PM

- For bucket you first dig your future farm to whatever size you want.
like (x = normal floor, . = channel, I = designation)
XXXX
XXXX
XXXX
XXXX

for a 4X4 room

Then on the level ABOVE the farm, you need to channel a hole to the farm level.

XXXX
X.XX
XXXX
XXXX

The designate the "hole" as pond from the upper floor

XXXX
XIIX
XXX
XXX

i -> designate
then on the zone do p for "pit/pond"
Then P to transform the pit (by default it's animal Pit and not Pond) and then f to order the dwarf to fill it up

so i -> designation -> p -> P -> f

Then the dwarf will start taking buckets, going to nearest water source and throw the water in the hole, which will irrigate the below tiles slowly.

Works well when you end up somewhere were murky pools/brooks arent very well located

If you want some bigger farm plots though you are better making multiple channels above it and designate each as a pit, to make it faster for the water to spread.


- For Perfect World I personally do not know much of the advanced feature but there is the trick on the DW forums to have volcanoes with possibilities to have a sedimentary layer next to them.
Still takes me a bit of world generating to have exactly the type of biomes I want though.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Aug 7 2010, 01:13 PM

ok thanks.

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Added on August 7, 2010, 10:32 pmweird my pressure plate isn't working sometimes, does it have something to do with the dwarves' weight? or are all of the dwarves have the same weight?

This post has been edited by justinlee999: Aug 7 2010, 10:32 PM

I have never played around with pressure plates yet so I cannot really help with that.

Wiki seems to show that you can setup which weight you want to trigger the plate though, you could try to put it at a lower settings to make sure it gets triggered.

Babies, children and adults seems to all have different weights (ie babies are lighter than children who are lighter than adults), but all members of the same category seems to have the same weight (ie all adults have the same weight)

I know in 31 release Toady redid lots of calculation on weight/mass of almost all materials, it could have somehow messed up with some dwarf weight, not sure

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Aug 7 2010, 11:14 PM

it works, but not all the time tho.

hey guys, how do i find magma? I'm trying to get myself some weapons, burning charcoal seems a tiring work since my workshop is 5 level under....

Depends on your map

When you embark you can autosearch maps with those who had magma or magma veins.
Be warned though fire imps dwells in it so trying to access it early will burn your fortress down to the ground

Hm, this game certainly has a steep learning curve. At least I managed to survive to Autumn so far. lols.

There is always magma on the maps now but its very very very deep and there are a lots of "surprises" on the way, which means you need already to have a big military and fortress ongoing to be able to reach it.

Personally what I do is use PerfectWorld to jack up the number of Volcano on the map and embark somewhere where I have:

- Volcano
- River/brook
- Sedimentary layer (for iron, bautimous coal etc.)
- Flux (for Steel)
- Gobelins - for Fun

Takes a while to find a map with all the above but makes for some good play
And you need to tune PerfectWorld a bit to be able to have Volcano AND sedimentary layer on the same map, because by default it's pretty much impossible.

Volcano are all the way to the surface (and usually goes above the surface actually) and are an unlimited source of magma, just careful to tap them

For tutorial, the one that REALLY helped me get started was this one:
Total Noobs tutorial to DF

Lots of stuff covered in it, including farming, magma, irrigation, digging, housing, military etc.

Was made for previous version though so some stuff changed but it can still help get started.

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Aug 11 2010, 11:29 AM

So in order to tap Magma on a normal map, I need to dig deep? How deep?

It's really very deep, like maybe 80 or 100 levels.

But I really do not recommend it much as there are 3 layers of caverns in between and there is a lot of Fun inside them (Fun as in the DF sense: mega beasts, monsters, even demons...)
So you need to go very careful and already have an equipped military (so already have smelted stuff) since some of the stuff in there is immune to traps and destroy doors/floors etc.

You used to be able to find a location with a magma pipe or magma cistern before but the new version has changed all of these and you cannot search for them for now.
Which is why I personally go for a Volcano, unlimited magma that goes up to the surface.

Anyway you do not absolutely "need" magma, you can do all without by using wood or coal to power your industry but it's quite more troublesome.

Strike the earth
Slay the beast
Face your demons

If you face demons with nothing but wrestlers....well good luck

Also story time

ahahahaha read that a few hours ago

Dayum, this game is freaking addictive once you know what is important and what is not.

And lol at the story ^.

A challenger appears!!

Goblincamp

Open source small project based on DF kind of gameplay, with a UI where you can use the MOUSE (unbelievable I know)!

It's far from DF complexity for now, but I will be keeping an eye on it myself

This post has been edited by Gormaz: Aug 17 2010, 09:30 AM

ahh.. i miss reading boatmurdered. maybe another rerun would do me good

Oh f*** me. Latest combat patch means my 2 legendary miners is shit now

LoL. I see 2 dorfs sleeping while the fortress is getting slaughtered.

Do you use ramps for up/downs?