So I was thinking about the happy thoughts dwarves get from seeing beloved creatures in a cage, and it occurred to me I could use this to increase the overall happiness at Nutscaves by having some reasonable fun with animals. (Nutscaves is starting to get a little dull, because we're now rich and happy enough, and well-designed enough, and our traps are powerful enough, to solve every problem that's been thrown at us so far.)
Currently pairs of bedrooms for normal dwarves (ones who aren't the mayor and aren't severely unhappy) are built like this:
XXX-XXX
XCB-BCX
XXX-XXX
X=Wall
- =Open Floor
C=Cabinet
B=Bed
and repeat. The bolded area (which includes the open floor, may not be visible on the hyphens) is the area that makes up one bedroom. It's symmetric on the other side and the open floor space is shared (this allows them to put their crap in a cabinet while also keeping the room value low, to prevent the mayor or nobles from getting mad--though I don't have a noble anymore).
Without modifying the current layout, I could build cages on the walkable floor, ideally made of materials the dwarves like, and put creatures they love inside. Cages are perfectly passable and it wouldn't disrupt the flow of dwarves heading to and from bed.
I could also rearrange rooms a bit so that dwarves who loved the same animal could all share floor space with one animal between them.
Animals that are detestable (such as rats) would not be eligible for this Tantrum Insulation Plan. Dwarves who love detestable animals will receive a new room layout, with the detestable animal hidden from passersby.
It's a little bit micromanagey since I have to look in individual profiles to find the beloved animals, and then consult the Room directory to find the dwarf's room, and build the cage and put the right animal inside. The other option would be to shove the everything-cage into the main stairwell in an all-purpose manner, but that's somehow just not as cute and cuddly.
I should also be working on bringing up some more magma for Project Goblin Equipment Sorter, but I'm a little stalled on that at the moment because I've either got to find a convenient way to move the goblins that I trap below the drawbridge, down below the aquifer, or I've got to bring the magma up above the aquifer. Both are fairly arduous tasks because of the small dimensions of the freeway I've punched through the aquifer, and both will require a new layout for the top level of the fort. A smarter builder than me could probably have done this already, but all I've got is me so...I sort of sit and think about how to do it the least painful way, while letting time pass in Nutscaves.
Showing posts with label Notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notes. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Too many goblins!
So Nutscaves pulled through the recent tragedies, though we still have over a dozen dwarves wandering around slowly with fever and extreme swelling. Ticking time bomb or totally safe? Hard to tell.
With the autumn siege of 267, combined with hauling all the previous goblin crap to the trade depot to buy all the iron the human traders brought--Armok has realized there is a problem.
The problem is that the goblins and their buddies (trolls, namely) just bring too much crap to the fortress. The particular goblin civilization that attacks Nutscaves, The Tame Disloyalty, does not have good access even to the weakest of metals. Most of their troops arrive wearing a low quality, emblemmed copper breastplate and helm, with low quality troll fur or spider silk clothing to fill in the rest of their "armor". Their weapons are usually copper. Their veteran goblins wear the same, but sometimes have a silver weapon. The masters and captains usually wear a few pieces of iron or steel.
I've seen other goblin civilizations, such as the one at my last fortress, that can afford to outfit every last goblin in full steel. So I know it could happen. But at Nutscaves it doesn't.
Armok added the masterwork copper and bismuth bronze menacing spikes that Sarvesh, our now-legendary weaponsmith, skilled up on, to the entrance spikes. (I couldn't melt the darn things..she'd tantrum.) This beefed up the spikes a great deal, especially considering that even our best-armored foes are usually wearing mere cloth over most of their bodies. (And the traps I beefed up had been just small sets of wooden training spears, before.)
As a result of the upgrade, we're getting a lot more corpses a lot faster during sieges as a result, and the resulting heap of bloody cloth outside the fortress is becoming...mountainous. It's getting difficult to drag it just the thirty paces indoors, to the stockpile next to the trade depot, in any reasonable amount of time. Then the junky goblin armor consumes a lot of bins, and the spider silk stuff is annoyingly valuable, making it hard to trade it all away.
Hauling it down to the magma has become a bit problematic, because Armok is sometimes having to use dumps to store other unwieldy things Armok accidentally overstocked, like magma-safe hatches and pump components. So I have to make sure nothing else in the fortress that I want to keep, is marked for dumping when I send items down to the sea. I'm a little overwhelmed with the level of micromanagement needed to get rid of all this junk.
There is enough of it that the trade depot filter screen is getting a little slow--something I had proudly prevented until recently. I enjoy keeping my fortress interface running smoothly and at a good framerate, and having the filters respond quickly to keystrokes. There's way too much crap in the fortress now.
There are several possible solutions I've considered:
1. Don't let the goblins enter the map. But Armok likes the goblins. The goblins give us purpose, meaning, and most importantly, entertainment in several forms.
2. Who cares about the items I might accidentally destroy...I can always dig up more quartzite and replace them. There's at least one whole rock level of it under us that hasn't been dug out. But Armok hates digging and (s)he hates the possibility of dumping some masterwork item while the fort is currently at its unhappiest since the Tantrum Spirals of Wiping. Armok can take this solution but Armok would like something better.
3. Armok was thinking to him-/herself: "If only I could set up a trap that sorted out the steel and iron items from the goblins, and dumped the others into the magma--"
And then it dawned on Armok. A substance in the fortress exists that can do just what Armok desires! It is the preferred substance of the best and mightiest builders: the magma itself! And Armok finally understands why the great builders would go to such lengths to utilize this substance!
Magma kills goblins and trolls, and all their other buddies that sometimes come along. It burns up everything they wear except iron and steel. When drained, it leaves nearly-molten-hot iron and steel items--but they can be cooled by being dunked in water.
Armok has theoretically infinite access to magma. Armok has infinite access to water. Does Armok dare build the deadliest trap Armok has ever seriously conceived of?
Previously the spikes were the deadliest trap Armok had ever dared employ. Just a few months ago, a veteran dwarf soldier in full fortress-forged, high-quality steel plate was accidentally killed by one in a single hit. (Oops.) But other than that, Armok has successfully kept the dwarves quite safe from the spikes. Can Armok keep the dwarves safe from the magma?
There is the question of what type of trap to design.
Trap Design 1. Some builders bring their magma to the surface and flood their entry bridge with it, then atom-smash the magma to drain. Armok could do that, but in Nutscaves it would be very tough. The holes in our aquifer aren't big enough to fit more plumbing (the current "surface" magma rests two layers below the aquifer, powering the forges), and Armok's magma piston isn't currently reusable either, after the Great Collapse of 263. Making the magma piston reusable once more isn't a huge deal, because it just involves some building, and extending water plumbing that was designed with this type of extension in mind. But, Armok would have to deconstruct an awful lot of stuff and tear massive holes in the top of the fortress, to freeze large enough openings in the aquifer to fit plumbing. This would probably take several tense winters of carefully-planned building.
Or I would have to painstakingly open the aquifer the "normal" way, with pumps, after carefully deciphering a diagram with lots of ASCII symbols, and which wasn't drawn with readability or order of operations particularly in mind... Haha, yeah right!
Armok has not particularly enjoyed freezing through this particular aquifer--Armok has done it twice now, once to make a path and the second time to widen it. (It's annoying because the aquifer is two layers tall, and it's several layers below the surface, and it has to be frozen-through in a funnel shape. The "funnel" I had to dig just to wind up with a 3x3 stairway in it was massive and very disruptive to fortress traffic.)
Trap Design 2. I could build or remodel a room below the aquifer, capable of being filled with magma, and drained, and then cooled with water. (Alternately, I also have a "room" in the fortress that is full of magma, and conveniently placed at the bottom of a hundred-ish-story air shaft. It could be easily modified to be drainable and refillable.) Then, all prisoners that behave themselves (non-thieves) could be melted in there--and I wouldn't have to bother stripping equipment from those types of prisoners anymore either. Unfortunately my current trap system (due to being very lethal) only allows me to pick up about a dozen prisoners from each siege, though, and I like to use prisoners for soldier practice. (It's the non-prisoners I want to melt.) During sieges, another two dozen goblins-and-co. tend to die to one of the two strips of spikes, or weapon traps, and the rest run away.
Trap Design 3. I could simply kill less goblins. I could remove high-quality metal components from traps, and stop spilling so many of the attackers into the spike room below the drawbridge. This would reduce the amount of clothing and other general crap I wind up with. However, my common sense tells me that decreasing defenses in order to potentially allow more or stronger attackers to get into the fortress, is not the smartest way to deal with our little trash problem.
Trap Design 4. I think what I'd really like, is to be able to flood the spike room under the drawbridge with magma at will. (While also retaining the ability to decide whether or not to use the magma, such as if I want to keep a special corpse for butchering, or some piece of treasure.) This would mean removing any weapon components in there that are not magma-safe (not a problem--hello Sarvesh!).
Getting water in there to cool it afterward would be a real pita, though, because the area is considered "Above Ground", and water will freeze as it enters the room at frozen times of year, which sometimes happen to correspond with sieges. The freezing water will create an ice plug, jamming the whole system.
The tiles of my spike room are considered "Above Ground" because the natural rock above them has been removed (when the drawbridge was built). (Even if something is built above "Above Ground" tiles, they can never become Subterranean again. It's similar to being infected with dreaded Light.)
So what I need to be able to do, I think, if I want to be able to melt the prisoners that get dropped under the bridge--is to find a way to lure them into a Subterranean area that can then be sealed (and then flooded with magma, drained, and cooled with water). Luring them (such as with a chained rabbit) would need to take into account that they may have long-range weapons, and one shot can potentially kill the lure, stopping it from working.
I've thought about using a locked door to protect my, say, chained rabbit from real harm--since that's what I use to get my giant cave spider to shoot silk at that poor dog in the weavers' area. I believe the goblins can either unlock doors (because they're sentient), or that they just won't bother trying to path through one (and so won't be interested in the rabbit), though. (In 40d it was the latter, but I've read on the magmawiki that it's the former, and magmawiki has been wrong so many times--so I don't know this for certain until I test it myself.) Well, I don't think a locked door will be right for this.
I remember a trap design I saw in 40d where a goat was tied up at the center of a long spiral path. As invaders entered the path, a floodgate went up to protect the goat, and the invaders got doused in magma. This is effective against goblin archers, and I use a design based on it for my trade depot entrance. It does have some problems, though, like it's kind of slow. (Goblins don't just charge in.) And in 31.25, unlike 40d, pathing is blocked by 1/7 depth evaporating magma. Magma takes a really long time to evaporate.
Well. I'll think about it some more.
With the autumn siege of 267, combined with hauling all the previous goblin crap to the trade depot to buy all the iron the human traders brought--Armok has realized there is a problem.
The problem is that the goblins and their buddies (trolls, namely) just bring too much crap to the fortress. The particular goblin civilization that attacks Nutscaves, The Tame Disloyalty, does not have good access even to the weakest of metals. Most of their troops arrive wearing a low quality, emblemmed copper breastplate and helm, with low quality troll fur or spider silk clothing to fill in the rest of their "armor". Their weapons are usually copper. Their veteran goblins wear the same, but sometimes have a silver weapon. The masters and captains usually wear a few pieces of iron or steel.
I've seen other goblin civilizations, such as the one at my last fortress, that can afford to outfit every last goblin in full steel. So I know it could happen. But at Nutscaves it doesn't.
Armok added the masterwork copper and bismuth bronze menacing spikes that Sarvesh, our now-legendary weaponsmith, skilled up on, to the entrance spikes. (I couldn't melt the darn things..she'd tantrum.) This beefed up the spikes a great deal, especially considering that even our best-armored foes are usually wearing mere cloth over most of their bodies. (And the traps I beefed up had been just small sets of wooden training spears, before.)
As a result of the upgrade, we're getting a lot more corpses a lot faster during sieges as a result, and the resulting heap of bloody cloth outside the fortress is becoming...mountainous. It's getting difficult to drag it just the thirty paces indoors, to the stockpile next to the trade depot, in any reasonable amount of time. Then the junky goblin armor consumes a lot of bins, and the spider silk stuff is annoyingly valuable, making it hard to trade it all away.
Hauling it down to the magma has become a bit problematic, because Armok is sometimes having to use dumps to store other unwieldy things Armok accidentally overstocked, like magma-safe hatches and pump components. So I have to make sure nothing else in the fortress that I want to keep, is marked for dumping when I send items down to the sea. I'm a little overwhelmed with the level of micromanagement needed to get rid of all this junk.
There is enough of it that the trade depot filter screen is getting a little slow--something I had proudly prevented until recently. I enjoy keeping my fortress interface running smoothly and at a good framerate, and having the filters respond quickly to keystrokes. There's way too much crap in the fortress now.
There are several possible solutions I've considered:
1. Don't let the goblins enter the map. But Armok likes the goblins. The goblins give us purpose, meaning, and most importantly, entertainment in several forms.
2. Who cares about the items I might accidentally destroy...I can always dig up more quartzite and replace them. There's at least one whole rock level of it under us that hasn't been dug out. But Armok hates digging and (s)he hates the possibility of dumping some masterwork item while the fort is currently at its unhappiest since the Tantrum Spirals of Wiping. Armok can take this solution but Armok would like something better.
3. Armok was thinking to him-/herself: "If only I could set up a trap that sorted out the steel and iron items from the goblins, and dumped the others into the magma--"
And then it dawned on Armok. A substance in the fortress exists that can do just what Armok desires! It is the preferred substance of the best and mightiest builders: the magma itself! And Armok finally understands why the great builders would go to such lengths to utilize this substance!
Magma kills goblins and trolls, and all their other buddies that sometimes come along. It burns up everything they wear except iron and steel. When drained, it leaves nearly-molten-hot iron and steel items--but they can be cooled by being dunked in water.
Armok has theoretically infinite access to magma. Armok has infinite access to water. Does Armok dare build the deadliest trap Armok has ever seriously conceived of?
Previously the spikes were the deadliest trap Armok had ever dared employ. Just a few months ago, a veteran dwarf soldier in full fortress-forged, high-quality steel plate was accidentally killed by one in a single hit. (Oops.) But other than that, Armok has successfully kept the dwarves quite safe from the spikes. Can Armok keep the dwarves safe from the magma?
There is the question of what type of trap to design.
Trap Design 1. Some builders bring their magma to the surface and flood their entry bridge with it, then atom-smash the magma to drain. Armok could do that, but in Nutscaves it would be very tough. The holes in our aquifer aren't big enough to fit more plumbing (the current "surface" magma rests two layers below the aquifer, powering the forges), and Armok's magma piston isn't currently reusable either, after the Great Collapse of 263. Making the magma piston reusable once more isn't a huge deal, because it just involves some building, and extending water plumbing that was designed with this type of extension in mind. But, Armok would have to deconstruct an awful lot of stuff and tear massive holes in the top of the fortress, to freeze large enough openings in the aquifer to fit plumbing. This would probably take several tense winters of carefully-planned building.
Or I would have to painstakingly open the aquifer the "normal" way, with pumps, after carefully deciphering a diagram with lots of ASCII symbols, and which wasn't drawn with readability or order of operations particularly in mind... Haha, yeah right!
Armok has not particularly enjoyed freezing through this particular aquifer--Armok has done it twice now, once to make a path and the second time to widen it. (It's annoying because the aquifer is two layers tall, and it's several layers below the surface, and it has to be frozen-through in a funnel shape. The "funnel" I had to dig just to wind up with a 3x3 stairway in it was massive and very disruptive to fortress traffic.)
Trap Design 2. I could build or remodel a room below the aquifer, capable of being filled with magma, and drained, and then cooled with water. (Alternately, I also have a "room" in the fortress that is full of magma, and conveniently placed at the bottom of a hundred-ish-story air shaft. It could be easily modified to be drainable and refillable.) Then, all prisoners that behave themselves (non-thieves) could be melted in there--and I wouldn't have to bother stripping equipment from those types of prisoners anymore either. Unfortunately my current trap system (due to being very lethal) only allows me to pick up about a dozen prisoners from each siege, though, and I like to use prisoners for soldier practice. (It's the non-prisoners I want to melt.) During sieges, another two dozen goblins-and-co. tend to die to one of the two strips of spikes, or weapon traps, and the rest run away.
Trap Design 3. I could simply kill less goblins. I could remove high-quality metal components from traps, and stop spilling so many of the attackers into the spike room below the drawbridge. This would reduce the amount of clothing and other general crap I wind up with. However, my common sense tells me that decreasing defenses in order to potentially allow more or stronger attackers to get into the fortress, is not the smartest way to deal with our little trash problem.
Trap Design 4. I think what I'd really like, is to be able to flood the spike room under the drawbridge with magma at will. (While also retaining the ability to decide whether or not to use the magma, such as if I want to keep a special corpse for butchering, or some piece of treasure.) This would mean removing any weapon components in there that are not magma-safe (not a problem--hello Sarvesh!).
Getting water in there to cool it afterward would be a real pita, though, because the area is considered "Above Ground", and water will freeze as it enters the room at frozen times of year, which sometimes happen to correspond with sieges. The freezing water will create an ice plug, jamming the whole system.
The tiles of my spike room are considered "Above Ground" because the natural rock above them has been removed (when the drawbridge was built). (Even if something is built above "Above Ground" tiles, they can never become Subterranean again. It's similar to being infected with dreaded Light.)
So what I need to be able to do, I think, if I want to be able to melt the prisoners that get dropped under the bridge--is to find a way to lure them into a Subterranean area that can then be sealed (and then flooded with magma, drained, and cooled with water). Luring them (such as with a chained rabbit) would need to take into account that they may have long-range weapons, and one shot can potentially kill the lure, stopping it from working.
I've thought about using a locked door to protect my, say, chained rabbit from real harm--since that's what I use to get my giant cave spider to shoot silk at that poor dog in the weavers' area. I believe the goblins can either unlock doors (because they're sentient), or that they just won't bother trying to path through one (and so won't be interested in the rabbit), though. (In 40d it was the latter, but I've read on the magmawiki that it's the former, and magmawiki has been wrong so many times--so I don't know this for certain until I test it myself.) Well, I don't think a locked door will be right for this.
I remember a trap design I saw in 40d where a goat was tied up at the center of a long spiral path. As invaders entered the path, a floodgate went up to protect the goat, and the invaders got doused in magma. This is effective against goblin archers, and I use a design based on it for my trade depot entrance. It does have some problems, though, like it's kind of slow. (Goblins don't just charge in.) And in 31.25, unlike 40d, pathing is blocked by 1/7 depth evaporating magma. Magma takes a really long time to evaporate.
Well. I'll think about it some more.
My introduction to starting a fortress
Here is Armok's lesson in fortress-building, or what to do once a site is found and embarked-upon. This lesson is about understanding the Dwarf Fortress world and critical problem-solving in new fortresses, rather than the specifics of using the interface. (There are plenty of tutorials about the latter.) Finding a site and all the other stuff that happens before embarking is a more contentious subject, and lots of information can be found about it elsewhere.
"SEVEN GUSY FOUND A SIGHT! LOL, WE GOT SUM BEER HEAR"
Armok believes the most critical lesson in fortresses is to keep the citizens alive. (Your definition of what constitutes a "citizen" versus a "non-citizen" is totally up to you.) Citizens have a few simple needs:
B. Fisherdwarves can catch fish from water. This is also a great source of food, especially if the water has flow. If it has flow, you won't ever run out of fish!* Beware as your fish and turtles can go extinct if you over-fish non-flowing water, such as ponds.
((Note: At least in DF2012, you most certainly will run out of fish from flowing water. Fish are no longer a long-term food source.))
C. Butchers can slaughter animals into edible meat and organs (and other inedible products you can use). Sometimes they can slaughter very-recently-dead animals, but live ones work a lot better. Even smaller animals provide a very large amount of meat, if they provide any at all. (One butchered adult sheep can feed four dwarves for a year, for example. An adult grizzly bear will feed five.) You can get animals for your butcher by buying them from caravans, hunting them, catching them in cages, breeding wild or tame animals within the fortress, or just killing wild animals by accident or with traps or soldiers. Wild animals are not reliably butcherable, but some of their corpses will be.
D. The berries and other plants you gather from shrubs can be eaten outright.
E. You can grow crops for a very reliable, steady source of food. Edible crops include mushrooms, berries, grain for flour, sweet pods for sugar and syrup, and the all-important spices. An unskilled farmer with two small farm plots and enough seeds can keep dozens of dwarves fed by himself every year, and a legendary farmer with the same can feed over three hundred dwarves. So, usually your farmer will produce more food than you need. The excess food makes very valuable trade goods for the caravan, especially if it's cooked.
F. Honey and royal jelly can be gathered from an artificial beehive. These cannot be eaten until cooked at the kitchen. There are many bugs with beekeeping** in DF2010 and it can be a frustrating industry to try to run.
((** I'd just like to add I find this particularly tragic, personally.))
Also, the bugs with beekeeping seem to persist in DF2012 as well.))
G. Milk can be cooked at the kitchen, or processed into cheese. Milk comes from milking tame milkable animals at the farmer's workshop, or buying it from the caravan. There are bugs with the pastures these animals need in order to survive in DF2010, and keeping “grazer” animals can be an exercise in frustration.
B. Happiness. Citizens are made happy by the following types of things:
Some types of defenses are very good against some types of enemies and not others.
That is Armok's introduction to Dwarf Fortress.
TLDR: If you can keep at least one citizen alive, youwin haven't lost yet.
"SEVEN GUSY FOUND A SIGHT! LOL, WE GOT SUM BEER HEAR"
Armok believes the most critical lesson in fortresses is to keep the citizens alive. (Your definition of what constitutes a "citizen" versus a "non-citizen" is totally up to you.) Citizens have a few simple needs:
- Citizens who are exposed to freezing or scorching weather for too long will die. Get them into a subterranean area any way you can. (Subterranean areas are always at a constant survivable temperature.) Their fat and clothes will protect them for a while in freezing weather, but against scorching weather there is no protection. You get to a subterranean area by digging. I hope you brought a pick!
- Citizens must drink. Citizens who are healthy want their favorite beer, but they'll take any beer pretty gladly. They'll drink water if there's no other choice. Citizens who are sick or injured need water. Citizens can also drink dirty water if they have to. Dirty water will get them sick, and they'll probably die if they come down with the kind of stuff that's in dirty water.
- Beer is made at the brewery, from plants or honey. The brewer needs a barrel (made from wood or metal) or a large pot (made from stone, glass, or clay) to put the beer in. Strangely, he doesn't need water in order to brew. The plants can be gathered from naturally-occurring shrubs, grown at a farm plot, or bought from the caravan. Honey is gathered from your beekeeping area (until it bugs out). Shrubs that get walked on even a little bit will die. If shrubs are sparse in your area, be careful where you tread!
- Water is found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans, and subterranean caverns. Nearly every map has water, even if it's only subterranean. The dwarves can drink non-salt water directly from the source, but they don't like that and will use it as a last resort. They prefer a well. You can build a well over water to make them like the water better. But if the water isn't flowing water, it'll be dirty. You can make dirty water clean by putting it in a reservoir that is more than one Z-level deep with water. This takes time to construct, but a safe, clean water source is a staple in every fortress.
- Citizens must eat. If there's edible stuff in the fortress (even live vermin), the citizens will know what to do with it. Citizens get really unhappy resorting to catching and eating their own live vermin. It's also possible to starve to death that way. So it's best to have another, more reliable source of food. Citizens like food best if it's been cooked at the kitchen into a quality meal. Food comes from tons of sources:
B. Fisherdwarves can catch fish from water. This is also a great source of food, especially if the water has flow. If it has flow, you won't ever run out of fish!* Beware as your fish and turtles can go extinct if you over-fish non-flowing water, such as ponds.
((Note: At least in DF2012, you most certainly will run out of fish from flowing water. Fish are no longer a long-term food source.))
C. Butchers can slaughter animals into edible meat and organs (and other inedible products you can use). Sometimes they can slaughter very-recently-dead animals, but live ones work a lot better. Even smaller animals provide a very large amount of meat, if they provide any at all. (One butchered adult sheep can feed four dwarves for a year, for example. An adult grizzly bear will feed five.) You can get animals for your butcher by buying them from caravans, hunting them, catching them in cages, breeding wild or tame animals within the fortress, or just killing wild animals by accident or with traps or soldiers. Wild animals are not reliably butcherable, but some of their corpses will be.
D. The berries and other plants you gather from shrubs can be eaten outright.
E. You can grow crops for a very reliable, steady source of food. Edible crops include mushrooms, berries, grain for flour, sweet pods for sugar and syrup, and the all-important spices. An unskilled farmer with two small farm plots and enough seeds can keep dozens of dwarves fed by himself every year, and a legendary farmer with the same can feed over three hundred dwarves. So, usually your farmer will produce more food than you need. The excess food makes very valuable trade goods for the caravan, especially if it's cooked.
F. Honey and royal jelly can be gathered from an artificial beehive. These cannot be eaten until cooked at the kitchen. There are many bugs with beekeeping** in DF2010 and it can be a frustrating industry to try to run.
((** I'd just like to add I find this particularly tragic, personally.))
Also, the bugs with beekeeping seem to persist in DF2012 as well.))
G. Milk can be cooked at the kitchen, or processed into cheese. Milk comes from milking tame milkable animals at the farmer's workshop, or buying it from the caravan. There are bugs with the pastures these animals need in order to survive in DF2010, and keeping “grazer” animals can be an exercise in frustration.
- Citizens must be kept happy enough to not throw violent tantrums or go insane. Insane dwarves will starve and dehydrate themselves, and insanity cannot be cured. Dwarves will go insane from unhappiness, and also from trying to make an artifact but not having the materials they want. Keep a good selection of materials around the fortress for the latter. As for the former, a citizen's state of happiness is summed from many sources. Here are some examples:
- A friend, family member, or pet dies
- They witness any friendly creature's death
- They see a corpse of a pet or a member of their civilization lying around somewhere in a decayed state
- They come into contact (line of sight) with a creature they detest. Most dwarves detest rats or roaches, and these tend to be common in farms and food storage areas. Employing a cat can go a long way to keep these pests at bay. All dwarves also hate being harassed by flies. Flies will unavoidably swarm around where there are corpses or food. Keeping food out of the main walkway is a good idea, but dwarves will still be harassed by flies when they go to pick up food to eat. This seems to be an unavoidable source of unhappiness, unless you can somehow avoid stockpiling food. (Let me know if you do.)
- They are attacked violently while a civilian
- They survive an accident, such as a cave-in or near-drowning
- They drink the same type of booze too many times in a row
- They drink unclean water, or eat vermin they personally caught with their bare hands
- They get quite hungry, thirsty, or tired
- They don't get to sleep in appropriate quarters (normal dwarves just like a low-quality bed to sleep in, but mayors need "decent quarters" to remain content, and nobles need much more)
- They talked to a noble (only if the dwarf doesn't care for authority)
- And many other sources of unhappy thoughts.
B. Happiness. Citizens are made happy by the following types of things:
- Being near mist (like a waterfall)
- Talking with family members, friends, or any dwarven child
- Being near their pet or a beloved creature
- Eating in a nice dining room
- Sleeping in a bedroom finer than one's station in life
- Admiring an owned object or owned room
- Admiring a well-crafted or well-built object, or being in close contact with an object the dwarf likes
- Eating a favorite food or drinking a favorite booze
- Drinking pure water from a deep well (more than one z-level water depth)
- Being let out of a cage. (Dwarves can't get into a cage through normal means, but cage traps will capture them if they're unconscious or caught in a web.)
- Continuing to live life with an unpunished crime. Murdering other members of the dwarf's civilization is a crime, and so is anything the nobles say is a crime--such as failing to meet a mandate.
- Being brought food or water, or brought to rest in bed (such as after an accident)
- Recovering from an illness or injury
- Becoming a parent, spouse, elected official, or noble
- Making an artifact
- Having a bath
- Having a bath with soap (much happier thought than just having a bath)
- And many other sources of happy thoughts.
- A spectacular enough accident has the potential to wipe out your fortress. Cave-ins, floods, fires, ill-conceived traps or constructions, falls from great heights, drowning, and just about any other conceivable type of accident can kill the citizens. Be careful when you mine and build.
- Finally, citizens must be protected from physical harm in the form of invaders and aggressive wild animals. These enemies come with varying degrees of determination, and will arrive from the surface or the caverns if they can find a way to reach you. It is up to you to decide how to protect your citizens from hostile forces. Having a sealable entrance you can put your dwarves behind goes a long way to protect the citizens from hostiles in a young fortress, but it is not required. You can deploy traps of all kinds, drawbridges, lockable doors, siege weapons, land mines, personnel, plague, extreme heat or cold, and vicious trained, tame, or wild animals (such as dogs, wolves, black/grizzly/polar bears, and large cats) to protect the fortress from hostiles.
Some types of defenses are very good against some types of enemies and not others.
- Only one weapon works on every enemy: entombment. You can encase anything in obsidian or ice, or bury it under a cave-in of natural rock, to kill it.
- Magma is highly effective against everything except forgotten beasts, and foes that normally live in magma.
- Upright spear traps work really well against enemies with organs, but they're pretty useless against an organless foe that is composed of things like vomit, fire, or rock.
- Flying enemies won't come down and stand on your traps or fight with your melee soldiers, unless there's no other way to get to the place they want. Otherwise those weapons can be very effective, depending on the quality involved and any natural resistances of the enemies.
- War dogs, grizzly bears, and the like are good at slowing down enemies and can kill almost as well as a dwarf soldier--but enemies with metal weapons will hack them to pieces with very little effort. (Note: Animals are an extremely bad choice to use against goblins in DF2010.)
That is Armok's introduction to Dwarf Fortress.
TLDR: If you can keep at least one citizen alive, you
Quarantining your fortress, step 7: If you can't find it, you know where it is
Always remember, when in doubt, you can always pass the problem along to the traders.
If you just can't find where the plague is coming from, and you've checked all the floors and walls, and taken my other precautions (yes, it can still happen if the fort was previously contaminated like Nutscaves!), then there is still a solution--because in this case you do know where that plague is coming from, by process of elimination. It's on an object that people have been handling.
So there are two things left to do:
I have lit things on fire in the magma shaft countless times with the express purpose of getting rid of them (and more often, without the express purpose of getting rid of them). The water reservoirs are pretty good too, since you can just forbid and forget items that "fall in". (You just have to re-forbid if it gets un-forbidden at any point, or else the owner will start whining about how he really really wants his tattered left sock that's under five stories of water in the well reservoir. I should probably have built a proper drain on that...)
And so concludes how Armok has learned to prevent and fight the plague. Armok's most important feature in this regard is probably persistence, and open-mindedness, because certainly, Armok found not all of the information available about quarantining a fortress online is correct.
If you just can't find where the plague is coming from, and you've checked all the floors and walls, and taken my other precautions (yes, it can still happen if the fort was previously contaminated like Nutscaves!), then there is still a solution--because in this case you do know where that plague is coming from, by process of elimination. It's on an object that people have been handling.
So there are two things left to do:
- Take everything to the trade depot or the magma sea (in my case I just picked whichever was closer to the items), forfeit all of it, and start over worldly-things-wise. Your material things are much worse than worthless if everyone who touches them dies. Dwarves might die hauling, but more will rise up to replace them until the item gets to its destination. (That, or the fort will die out.) The plague is by far the mightiest opponent I have encountered in Dwarf Fortress, and there is definitely no dishonor in losing to such a powerful foe.
- Look at people's owned clothes that they are not wearing. My dwarves all sleep in one section of the fortress and have their own cabinets, so this is fairly easy (though a bit painstaking) in my fort. If you find plague contaminant on a piece of clothing someone owns (and this can only have happened if your fort wasn't properly quarantined at some point, like Nutscaves), then you have a somewhat serious problem (as in, the type you can't ignore). You can't sell or move owned items, or give the dwarves any instructions whatsoever about them (except this one): So forbid the item and everything adjacent, and wall it up as in Quarantining your fortress, step 6. The owner will not complain as long as it stays forbidden.
I have lit things on fire in the magma shaft countless times with the express purpose of getting rid of them (and more often, without the express purpose of getting rid of them). The water reservoirs are pretty good too, since you can just forbid and forget items that "fall in". (You just have to re-forbid if it gets un-forbidden at any point, or else the owner will start whining about how he really really wants his tattered left sock that's under five stories of water in the well reservoir. I should probably have built a proper drain on that...)
And so concludes how Armok has learned to prevent and fight the plague. Armok's most important feature in this regard is probably persistence, and open-mindedness, because certainly, Armok found not all of the information available about quarantining a fortress online is correct.
Quarantining your fortress, step 6: Know what they won't clean
I have some obviously contaminated spots in my fortress that I just could not get the dwarves to clean, period. Originally I didn't know what to do about these areas, so I tried everything and had to learn my conclusions by experience.
For starters, dwarves currently won't clean:
You can remove contaminants from a wall by removing the wall. (Note: I don't recommend doing this.) The building material will be contaminated when it comes out. The miner or builder who removes the wall will 100% certainly be contaminated if not wearing gloves. This miner or builder will also very likely be contaminated even if fully dressed, because they have to come in close contact with the contaminated area to do their job, and close contact is the definition of plague spreading in DF.
Whether or not this miner or builder contracts the plague himself, the next bathtub this miner or builder goes through will get plague in the water. Bathtubs are high priority for cleaners when engraved--but the cleaners can't just teleport there instantly, or finish the job instantly. (You could station janitors in the tub, but they will just tend to wind up standing in plague, and come down with it, before they decide to start cleaning. I learned from experience.) Injured dwarves who may have dropped a boot and move through the tub, such as to the hospital, will be infected. (Example: A goblin bit your foot off in the execution room. Now you've got the plague because of that miner who decontaminated the wall! It happened.)
Anyone who hauls the contaminated building material away will also contaminate the first tub they go through. The building material will get clean from that, but your shoeless dwarves won't thank you.
Clearly this is a nightmare. Plague that can survive on surfaces indefinitely is a nightmare. It's hard to find and it's hard to clean up (if it even can be cleaned-up). You don't want it. But you have it. What to do?
There is one solution that definitely works. This substance has to be located and sealed off--and it has to be sealed off while standing in a tile that is not contaminated. If you can prevent the builder from getting contaminated and avoid creating contaminated building materials, then nobody will get sick from this contaminated tile (once it's sealed). But how?!
First, you have to do everything in your power to keep dwarves from continuing to step on or next to the contaminated areas while the builders work:
Hopefully, nobody will starve or dehydrate while your builders save the fortress. This is why it's good to have multiple stockpiles of food and beer, and clean water sources throughout the fortress. At Nutscaves, before proper quarantine measures were in place, the dwarves had to be sealed off from each of the three vital things at various times of plague.
So, next we must build a wall all around the contaminated area, and a floor over the top of it (if the top isn't already sealed). Why a floor over the top of it? Because if you don't, mark my words, some unlucky dwarf or animal will find a way to fall inside there someday. (It'll be so much !!fun!! getting him out without contaminating the fortress...that's coming from one who knows!)
Make sure the builders will not have to walk through the contaminated areas to get to the materials they'll use, or to build the seal itself. You can control the direction the dwarves build from, by designating a statue to be built in the tiles you don't want (can't let!) them to stand in, and suspend the construction of the statue. So, suspend statue construction over every contaminated tile and adjacent tiles, before doing anything else. I always keep some junky statues around the fortress for this simple purpose (and others).
This is painstaking, nitpicking work especially in soil layers where contaminants are invisible in the GUI, but it's worth not getting any dwarves sick. The last of the very worst strain of plague in my fortress is, as far as I know, currently entombed by stone walls and floors next to the trade depot. No one has had it for seven years. (We currently only have a weaker blood plague and the light necrotic plague active, that I know of, and I haven't been able to track them down. I suspect they're on pieces of clothing somewhere...it's time for another fiery sacrifice of our worldly goods.)
Now, as long as we never tear down those walls and floors entombing the plague (or find an object that magically survived with contaminant on it), we should never get that particular plague again.
For starters, dwarves currently won't clean:
- Stairs
- Soil layers
- Above ground areas
- Constructed walls
You can remove contaminants from a wall by removing the wall. (Note: I don't recommend doing this.) The building material will be contaminated when it comes out. The miner or builder who removes the wall will 100% certainly be contaminated if not wearing gloves. This miner or builder will also very likely be contaminated even if fully dressed, because they have to come in close contact with the contaminated area to do their job, and close contact is the definition of plague spreading in DF.
Whether or not this miner or builder contracts the plague himself, the next bathtub this miner or builder goes through will get plague in the water. Bathtubs are high priority for cleaners when engraved--but the cleaners can't just teleport there instantly, or finish the job instantly. (You could station janitors in the tub, but they will just tend to wind up standing in plague, and come down with it, before they decide to start cleaning. I learned from experience.) Injured dwarves who may have dropped a boot and move through the tub, such as to the hospital, will be infected. (Example: A goblin bit your foot off in the execution room. Now you've got the plague because of that miner who decontaminated the wall! It happened.)
Anyone who hauls the contaminated building material away will also contaminate the first tub they go through. The building material will get clean from that, but your shoeless dwarves won't thank you.
Clearly this is a nightmare. Plague that can survive on surfaces indefinitely is a nightmare. It's hard to find and it's hard to clean up (if it even can be cleaned-up). You don't want it. But you have it. What to do?
There is one solution that definitely works. This substance has to be located and sealed off--and it has to be sealed off while standing in a tile that is not contaminated. If you can prevent the builder from getting contaminated and avoid creating contaminated building materials, then nobody will get sick from this contaminated tile (once it's sealed). But how?!
First, you have to do everything in your power to keep dwarves from continuing to step on or next to the contaminated areas while the builders work:
- Identify contaminated areas and deny access to that section of the fortress, such as via a burrow.
- I mark contaminated areas as Restricted Traffic so that dwarves (and invaders, who can likewise spread contaminants) will do everything in their power not to step there. Traffic designations will also help you keep track of places that have been contaminated and sealed off in the soil layers (where contaminants are not visible), so that you don't try to do anything else there.
Hopefully, nobody will starve or dehydrate while your builders save the fortress. This is why it's good to have multiple stockpiles of food and beer, and clean water sources throughout the fortress. At Nutscaves, before proper quarantine measures were in place, the dwarves had to be sealed off from each of the three vital things at various times of plague.
So, next we must build a wall all around the contaminated area, and a floor over the top of it (if the top isn't already sealed). Why a floor over the top of it? Because if you don't, mark my words, some unlucky dwarf or animal will find a way to fall inside there someday. (It'll be so much !!fun!! getting him out without contaminating the fortress...that's coming from one who knows!)
Make sure the builders will not have to walk through the contaminated areas to get to the materials they'll use, or to build the seal itself. You can control the direction the dwarves build from, by designating a statue to be built in the tiles you don't want (can't let!) them to stand in, and suspend the construction of the statue. So, suspend statue construction over every contaminated tile and adjacent tiles, before doing anything else. I always keep some junky statues around the fortress for this simple purpose (and others).
This is painstaking, nitpicking work especially in soil layers where contaminants are invisible in the GUI, but it's worth not getting any dwarves sick. The last of the very worst strain of plague in my fortress is, as far as I know, currently entombed by stone walls and floors next to the trade depot. No one has had it for seven years. (We currently only have a weaker blood plague and the light necrotic plague active, that I know of, and I haven't been able to track them down. I suspect they're on pieces of clothing somewhere...it's time for another fiery sacrifice of our worldly goods.)
Now, as long as we never tear down those walls and floors entombing the plague (or find an object that magically survived with contaminant on it), we should never get that particular plague again.
Quarantining your fortress, step 5: No kids in the tub!
And, no kids beyond the tub either! I've had two children born in the fortress survive to adulthood (in their full nudity) alive now. (The fort is 16 years old, so that's really all the children that have had time to live to age 13 after the first two gigantic spirals of doom wiped the population.) There are about 28 other completely naked children and babies all across the age spectrum. We haven't had any kids die to plague for nearly a decade. That's not to say it can't happen--but here is how to control the kids.
Nutscaves contains a burrow that is bordered by the bathtubs. I named it "Safe Indoor Living". Safe Indoor Living also doesn't contain any dangerous areas, like the magma shaft or the prisoner processing station, or anything in the contaminated or outdoor areas. It doesn't really matter how big or nice this burrow is, as long as it has somewhere for the kids to sleep, food for them to eat, and beer. (Mine happens to contain a lot more than what is needed for survival.) What matters here is protecting the kids. All the dwarven children are assigned to live in this burrow. When an infant becomes a toddler, that's Armok's cue to assign. They're unassigned when they reach adulthood. (I know when they reach adulthood because on adulthood they automatically become a hauler, and I start getting spammed with messages about inaccessible items they want to haul. The items are outside the Safe Indoor Living area.)
Infants cannot be assigned to this burrow because their mothers carry them around. Infants are constantly in danger of infection because of this, but such is the danger of infancy. You could further protect the infants by confining mothers to the burrow as well. I don't do that because it's too micromanagey for me.
Kids will leave this burrow, but what I've found (and that contradicts the information on the magmawiki) is that they will not do it, unless their parent does and they've decided to follow this parent. Almost all of the dwarves in my fortress live and work in this burrow and rarely leave it, and the kids tend to throw a lot of parties to keep themselves occupied within the burrow even if their parents leave. Clearly this setup is not 100% safe, but children rarely go outside the burrow and it seems reasonably effective in keeping the plague at bay.
Only locking them into a safe room until adulthood, and air-dropping food and beer would be truly safe. But I don't care for that standard of living. At Nutscaves we willingly take some risks to live happier lives.
Also, dwarves get happy thoughts from talking to children, and children stay happy by throwing parties and enjoying good meals and beer. So it's nice if the kids' burrow contains meeting areas and a nice dining room.
Nutscaves contains a burrow that is bordered by the bathtubs. I named it "Safe Indoor Living". Safe Indoor Living also doesn't contain any dangerous areas, like the magma shaft or the prisoner processing station, or anything in the contaminated or outdoor areas. It doesn't really matter how big or nice this burrow is, as long as it has somewhere for the kids to sleep, food for them to eat, and beer. (Mine happens to contain a lot more than what is needed for survival.) What matters here is protecting the kids. All the dwarven children are assigned to live in this burrow. When an infant becomes a toddler, that's Armok's cue to assign. They're unassigned when they reach adulthood. (I know when they reach adulthood because on adulthood they automatically become a hauler, and I start getting spammed with messages about inaccessible items they want to haul. The items are outside the Safe Indoor Living area.)
Infants cannot be assigned to this burrow because their mothers carry them around. Infants are constantly in danger of infection because of this, but such is the danger of infancy. You could further protect the infants by confining mothers to the burrow as well. I don't do that because it's too micromanagey for me.
Kids will leave this burrow, but what I've found (and that contradicts the information on the magmawiki) is that they will not do it, unless their parent does and they've decided to follow this parent. Almost all of the dwarves in my fortress live and work in this burrow and rarely leave it, and the kids tend to throw a lot of parties to keep themselves occupied within the burrow even if their parents leave. Clearly this setup is not 100% safe, but children rarely go outside the burrow and it seems reasonably effective in keeping the plague at bay.
Only locking them into a safe room until adulthood, and air-dropping food and beer would be truly safe. But I don't care for that standard of living. At Nutscaves we willingly take some risks to live happier lives.
Also, dwarves get happy thoughts from talking to children, and children stay happy by throwing parties and enjoying good meals and beer. So it's nice if the kids' burrow contains meeting areas and a nice dining room.
Quarantining your fortress, step 4: Wash it
Nutscaves was already highly contaminated before I took the three critical measures above. Dwarves walking over or handling contaminated items were falling ill left and right. People were dying with contaminants on their clothes, and the clothes would sit a while. Then I'd decide they were in the way, or need to build (or deconstruct) something where the clothes pile was...and somebody would touch them.
The trade depot was a particular problem area. The items would get moved or stepped on, and the plague spiral would start anew. Contaminants weren't just on the clothes and other gear, either. They had found their way onto building materials as well.
I had no idea what to do about this to begin with, so I started making people take off their clothes when I realized they were wearing bad clothes. This was the wrong step to take, but I didn't know it at the time. I believe the right step to take, if quarantining has failed and something contaminated has found its way into the fort, is to purge the contaminants, now. Naked people handling contaminated clothes just make the problem worse.
There are many ways to get the contaminants off of an object, and my favorite one is magma. Luckily I had found the magma sea before people started dying of plague. I designated a dump over the open magma and started dumping contaminated items: clothes, equipment, stone. It was a painstaking process and some of the dwarves taking the items down to the Magma Clothes “Washer” got sick. Others had to come to replace them. Eventually enough dwarves who happened to be wearing gloves and shoes were hauling, and we managed to get rid of the bad stuff.
Another washing method that is easier than that, is to wash in a dwarven bathtub. This is preferably a bathtub not a lot of people will be walking through. In my fort, the one in the second cavern pretty well never gets touched, so it doubles as a clothes washer. I just designate it as a dump and the dwarves will put the items in. When the items are reclaimed, all they'll have on them is "water covering". Just don't dare reclaim them until the filth has been cleaned from the tub area.
Another method I (accidentally) used to get rid of contaminated stone is, if I know the stone is contaminated, and I know I'll want to use that type of stone later and may have an accident with it if I forbid it--just (make sure all builders are wearing gloves and*) use up all the stone by building a floor with it. If it's used to build a floor, the floor will be contaminated and a dwarf will come along and clean it fairly promptly. As long as he doesn't stand right on that dirty square, he won't come in contact with the contaminants. They try not to stand on the dirty square when they clean, if there's only one such square. I cleaned the stone I didn't purge with magma, this way.
((* Note: I believe there is still some risk of contracting the plague when handling the contaminated material, but it's not 100% if hand protection is worn.))
The trade depot was a particular problem area. The items would get moved or stepped on, and the plague spiral would start anew. Contaminants weren't just on the clothes and other gear, either. They had found their way onto building materials as well.
I had no idea what to do about this to begin with, so I started making people take off their clothes when I realized they were wearing bad clothes. This was the wrong step to take, but I didn't know it at the time. I believe the right step to take, if quarantining has failed and something contaminated has found its way into the fort, is to purge the contaminants, now. Naked people handling contaminated clothes just make the problem worse.
There are many ways to get the contaminants off of an object, and my favorite one is magma. Luckily I had found the magma sea before people started dying of plague. I designated a dump over the open magma and started dumping contaminated items: clothes, equipment, stone. It was a painstaking process and some of the dwarves taking the items down to the Magma Clothes “Washer” got sick. Others had to come to replace them. Eventually enough dwarves who happened to be wearing gloves and shoes were hauling, and we managed to get rid of the bad stuff.
Another washing method that is easier than that, is to wash in a dwarven bathtub. This is preferably a bathtub not a lot of people will be walking through. In my fort, the one in the second cavern pretty well never gets touched, so it doubles as a clothes washer. I just designate it as a dump and the dwarves will put the items in. When the items are reclaimed, all they'll have on them is "water covering". Just don't dare reclaim them until the filth has been cleaned from the tub area.
Another method I (accidentally) used to get rid of contaminated stone is, if I know the stone is contaminated, and I know I'll want to use that type of stone later and may have an accident with it if I forbid it--just (make sure all builders are wearing gloves and*) use up all the stone by building a floor with it. If it's used to build a floor, the floor will be contaminated and a dwarf will come along and clean it fairly promptly. As long as he doesn't stand right on that dirty square, he won't come in contact with the contaminants. They try not to stand on the dirty square when they clean, if there's only one such square. I cleaned the stone I didn't purge with magma, this way.
((* Note: I believe there is still some risk of contracting the plague when handling the contaminated material, but it's not 100% if hand protection is worn.))
Quarantining your fortress, step 3: Gloves and shoes
In every fortress, currently contaminated or not, everyone should be wearing gloves and shoes at all times. These two simple pieces of clothing will save the wearer's life if anything in the fortress becomes contaminated at any point. Unfortunately children born in the fort are born naked, and cannot acquire clothing until they reach adulthood at age 13. (More on that later.)
The way to make adult dwarves wear gloves and shoes is slightly annoying, but it's for their own safety. The dwarves will never acquire proper shoes and gloves on their own, and they like to strip naked randomly when left to their own devices. So, Armok has to instantiate rules in order to enforce this simple dress code. There is no other way to save the dwarves from their own stupidity (or totally innocent frolicking and enjoyment of life, if you prefer).
What Armok had to do to make the dwarves wear gloves and shoes, is:
This method isn't foolproof without micromanagement or automation, because clothing wears out really quickly, especially shoes, and the dwarves have to be activated into the military to know to put shoes on. To make the dwarves do this on their own, Nutscaves is now using an alert that automatically reissues the Station command to a few dwarves at a time, a couple of times a year. Using a scheduled alert like this enrages (or depresses, depending on personality) non-military dwarves, even though they're only on active duty for only five minutes per year and never have to fight anything. (That's said to be a bug Toady is working on.)
I suppose legendary dining rooms and meals are there to help mitigate that sort of thing.
The way to make adult dwarves wear gloves and shoes is slightly annoying, but it's for their own safety. The dwarves will never acquire proper shoes and gloves on their own, and they like to strip naked randomly when left to their own devices. So, Armok has to instantiate rules in order to enforce this simple dress code. There is no other way to save the dwarves from their own stupidity (or totally innocent frolicking and enjoyment of life, if you prefer).
What Armok had to do to make the dwarves wear gloves and shoes, is:
- Create a military uniform that includes these two items, optionally adding socks for extra foot protection or mittens for extra hand protection.
- Assign all adults to military squads.
- Assign their squads to wear this uniform.
- Draft the squad into active duty once. (I just use the Station command to do this.)
- Wait for everybody to get dressed.
- (You can now deactivate them safely.)
- (Don't forget to activate them again each time their shoes or gloves rot off.)
This method isn't foolproof without micromanagement or automation, because clothing wears out really quickly, especially shoes, and the dwarves have to be activated into the military to know to put shoes on. To make the dwarves do this on their own, Nutscaves is now using an alert that automatically reissues the Station command to a few dwarves at a time, a couple of times a year. Using a scheduled alert like this enrages (or depresses, depending on personality) non-military dwarves, even though they're only on active duty for only five minutes per year and never have to fight anything. (That's said to be a bug Toady is working on.)
I suppose legendary dining rooms and meals are there to help mitigate that sort of thing.
Quarantining your fortress, step 2: Forgotten beast traps
Coming into contact with a Forgotten Beast is an almost sure way to contract the plague and get contaminants all over one's equipment. When a soldier dies of the plague, other soldiers will look to upgrade their equipment. If they're not stopped, the survivors will pick up the equipment which is inevitably coated in contaminants, and instantly contract the plague themselves when they do. Then they'll die of plague, and the process will repeat.
There are two different ways I know of to prevent this: 1. Forbid all dropped items upon death, and never let a dwarf step near that tile again (if it's contaminated) - or 2. Just don't let dwarves or animals come into contact with forgotten beasts. The first method works, but is impractical since the only way to stop dwarves from deciding to step on contaminated equipment is to encase the items in obsidian or ice, or remove an area about 5 tiles in every direction from the citizens' burrow.
So I use the second method: My caverns are completely sealed (including from flying beasts) except for one destroyable entrance, protected by lever-operated upright spikes. Normal, highly-safety-oriented players (not me) just seal the caverns completely and call it done, I think, letting forgotten beasts accumulate and roam around. Forgotten beasts can't destroy walls or floors--so this works great for them.
I use a slightly-less-safe entrances-with-traps method, in which most forgotten beasts die of being impaled by mechanical spikes while they try to tear down floodgates. This way, I can access the caverns and continue to harvest wood and water from them, and build plumbing structures that go through them, without my builders having to worry about 20 forgotten beasts roaming around.
In other words, I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by letting the caverns be part of my gameplay. But why play without enjoying the caverns? If I'm not living on the edge, I feel I'm taking up too much space.
There are two different ways I know of to prevent this: 1. Forbid all dropped items upon death, and never let a dwarf step near that tile again (if it's contaminated) - or 2. Just don't let dwarves or animals come into contact with forgotten beasts. The first method works, but is impractical since the only way to stop dwarves from deciding to step on contaminated equipment is to encase the items in obsidian or ice, or remove an area about 5 tiles in every direction from the citizens' burrow.
So I use the second method: My caverns are completely sealed (including from flying beasts) except for one destroyable entrance, protected by lever-operated upright spikes. Normal, highly-safety-oriented players (not me) just seal the caverns completely and call it done, I think, letting forgotten beasts accumulate and roam around. Forgotten beasts can't destroy walls or floors--so this works great for them.
I use a slightly-less-safe entrances-with-traps method, in which most forgotten beasts die of being impaled by mechanical spikes while they try to tear down floodgates. This way, I can access the caverns and continue to harvest wood and water from them, and build plumbing structures that go through them, without my builders having to worry about 20 forgotten beasts roaming around.
In other words, I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by letting the caverns be part of my gameplay. But why play without enjoying the caverns? If I'm not living on the edge, I feel I'm taking up too much space.
Quarantining your fortress, step 1: Water coating
((This post is about quarantining. If you want to just skip to the story, the next story post is "Winter 266, Nutscaves"))
Everything in a safe DF2010 fortress revolves around the dwarven bathtubs. Dwarves must be funneled through a smoothed and engraved dwarven bathtub whenever they enter or leave the hospital, the soil layers of the fortress, or any cavern. These bathtubs are incredibly dangerous, in a way, because they gather contaminants off of dwarves and objects (which then emerge clean with a coating of water).
Coming in contact with contaminants is what causes plague. The engravings in the tubs help ensure the tubs get prioritized for cleaning regularly. I find they are usually cleaned within a week of contamination even with forty dedicated, stationed janitors standing in the tub. In sum, tubs alone will never save you.
The tubs do not prevent the plague. They just prevent infected substances from escaping the caverns and Nutscaves' contaminated soil (upper) levels. The contaminants cannot get into the rock layers where most dwarves live and work unless they are already there, or a bathtub fails by becoming dry. (Such as that incident when the well went dry*, and everyone decided to give patients water from the hospital bathtub until it dried up.) ((* That incident was told orally.))
Bathtubs do not get dry on their own once they have depth 2/7 or more water in them. This depth prevents evaporation. It's dwarven physics.
When a dwarf gets wet in the bathtub, his Water Coating seems to temporarily prevent him from getting contaminated further. I keep all dwarven forays into the caverns, which are full of forgotten beast poison, as brief as possible. This ensures the dwarves keep their protective water coating. When I chop cavern wood, I select very small areas and stop the wood cutters if it's starting to take too long. I don't let my wood cutters haul wood--the wood haulers can zip in and out and keep a water coating to do that bit safely, while I keep my eye on the woodcutters and minimize their time spent working. The less total time the dwarves spend in the cavern chopping, the less micromanagement I have to do.
When we haul a forgotten beast corpse from the spike traps in the caverns to the butcher, the hauler also gets the water coating. So far I haven't had any of them get contaminated with extracts or deadly blood. (Part of the reason I continue to keep my caverns open instead of permanently sealing them, is because I continue to test whether this water coating really works as contaminant prevention. So far it seems to.)
Everything in a safe DF2010 fortress revolves around the dwarven bathtubs. Dwarves must be funneled through a smoothed and engraved dwarven bathtub whenever they enter or leave the hospital, the soil layers of the fortress, or any cavern. These bathtubs are incredibly dangerous, in a way, because they gather contaminants off of dwarves and objects (which then emerge clean with a coating of water).
Coming in contact with contaminants is what causes plague. The engravings in the tubs help ensure the tubs get prioritized for cleaning regularly. I find they are usually cleaned within a week of contamination even with forty dedicated, stationed janitors standing in the tub. In sum, tubs alone will never save you.
The tubs do not prevent the plague. They just prevent infected substances from escaping the caverns and Nutscaves' contaminated soil (upper) levels. The contaminants cannot get into the rock layers where most dwarves live and work unless they are already there, or a bathtub fails by becoming dry. (Such as that incident when the well went dry*, and everyone decided to give patients water from the hospital bathtub until it dried up.) ((* That incident was told orally.))
Bathtubs do not get dry on their own once they have depth 2/7 or more water in them. This depth prevents evaporation. It's dwarven physics.
When a dwarf gets wet in the bathtub, his Water Coating seems to temporarily prevent him from getting contaminated further. I keep all dwarven forays into the caverns, which are full of forgotten beast poison, as brief as possible. This ensures the dwarves keep their protective water coating. When I chop cavern wood, I select very small areas and stop the wood cutters if it's starting to take too long. I don't let my wood cutters haul wood--the wood haulers can zip in and out and keep a water coating to do that bit safely, while I keep my eye on the woodcutters and minimize their time spent working. The less total time the dwarves spend in the cavern chopping, the less micromanagement I have to do.
When we haul a forgotten beast corpse from the spike traps in the caverns to the butcher, the hauler also gets the water coating. So far I haven't had any of them get contaminated with extracts or deadly blood. (Part of the reason I continue to keep my caverns open instead of permanently sealing them, is because I continue to test whether this water coating really works as contaminant prevention. So far it seems to.)
Plague prevention measures: the 7-step program
So we had (yet) another dwarf contract the plague at Nutscaves. A learning experience ensued: he'd been assigned new shoes within the last two years, but his shoes had just rotted off, apparently moments before the illness kicked in. He contracted the blood plague, but the case was mild and he survived.
Previously I hadn't thought shoes would rot off so quickly. Perhaps it happened because we'd been doing a lot of long-range hauling recently--or he'd been assigned some slightly worn shoes to begin with. Each year I had been assigning ten new dwarves to wear shoes, assuming this would keep up with wear and not aggravate too many dwarves with "Enforced Dressing" (wherein I draft them into the military and make them stand around until their whole "squad" manages to get dressed. There are a lot of bumblers in my fortress and this takes a long time. There are tons of whines and complaints about hunger and thirst to accompany the process.) Each year I also check the condition of all currently assigned shoes, and decide whether to replace them.
After that dwarf contracted the plague, I did an extra check for glove-and-shoe wear, six months before the next one was due. I discovered a lot of other shoes had rotted off of other dwarves as well, much faster than expected! And so Nutscaves spent the late summer/early autumn of the year 266 doing nothing but reassigning shoes and gloves, to prevent more plague. It was a painstaking task on the part of Armok, and had to be done sloppily for speed (to prevent more plague contraction). Many dwarves are now walking around very upset as a result. We're in a precarious situation because of it. If anybody comes down with the plague and dies, or if there's a construction accident soon, we're already sitting on the precipice of a tantrum spiral.
Nutscaves is an unusual fortress. It has survived multiple strains and outbreaks of the worst type of highly contagious, deadly necrotic blood plague. It also has highly contaminated living and work spaces that can't be cleaned up safely. Many citizens also became infected with plague in less well-quarantined times, and they occasionally fall ill with recurrences of it. And yet, we have a population of about 155 dwarves, with 30 of them buck-naked children and infants. We have had only one plague death, and one other dwarf falling ill with plague and recovering, in the last few years.
Potentially, at any moment, if Armok stopped employing our strict quarantine procedures, then most of the population could fall ill and die. This fort has survived sixteen years so far, and Armok's procedures have evolved over time to prevent infection as much as possible within reason. Armok is currently using a set of procedures which seem quite effective in preventing the spread of plague. They're not 100% effective, but this quarantine procedure shows that a badly contaminated fort is not necessarily doomed. If I had started out with these procedures, the fort might never have become infected at all.
Following are Armok's current quarantine procedures, evolved over 16 years at Nutscaves.
Previously I hadn't thought shoes would rot off so quickly. Perhaps it happened because we'd been doing a lot of long-range hauling recently--or he'd been assigned some slightly worn shoes to begin with. Each year I had been assigning ten new dwarves to wear shoes, assuming this would keep up with wear and not aggravate too many dwarves with "Enforced Dressing" (wherein I draft them into the military and make them stand around until their whole "squad" manages to get dressed. There are a lot of bumblers in my fortress and this takes a long time. There are tons of whines and complaints about hunger and thirst to accompany the process.) Each year I also check the condition of all currently assigned shoes, and decide whether to replace them.
After that dwarf contracted the plague, I did an extra check for glove-and-shoe wear, six months before the next one was due. I discovered a lot of other shoes had rotted off of other dwarves as well, much faster than expected! And so Nutscaves spent the late summer/early autumn of the year 266 doing nothing but reassigning shoes and gloves, to prevent more plague. It was a painstaking task on the part of Armok, and had to be done sloppily for speed (to prevent more plague contraction). Many dwarves are now walking around very upset as a result. We're in a precarious situation because of it. If anybody comes down with the plague and dies, or if there's a construction accident soon, we're already sitting on the precipice of a tantrum spiral.
Nutscaves is an unusual fortress. It has survived multiple strains and outbreaks of the worst type of highly contagious, deadly necrotic blood plague. It also has highly contaminated living and work spaces that can't be cleaned up safely. Many citizens also became infected with plague in less well-quarantined times, and they occasionally fall ill with recurrences of it. And yet, we have a population of about 155 dwarves, with 30 of them buck-naked children and infants. We have had only one plague death, and one other dwarf falling ill with plague and recovering, in the last few years.
Potentially, at any moment, if Armok stopped employing our strict quarantine procedures, then most of the population could fall ill and die. This fort has survived sixteen years so far, and Armok's procedures have evolved over time to prevent infection as much as possible within reason. Armok is currently using a set of procedures which seem quite effective in preventing the spread of plague. They're not 100% effective, but this quarantine procedure shows that a badly contaminated fort is not necessarily doomed. If I had started out with these procedures, the fort might never have become infected at all.
Following are Armok's current quarantine procedures, evolved over 16 years at Nutscaves.
A note about the story
Caging Therapy: A dwarf is purposely captured in a cage, but he does not realize it was anything but an accident. He is left in the cage for any length of time—short or long. When he is let out of the cage, he is so incredibly ecstatic about regaining his freedom, that his other troubles seem very minor to him. Useful for helping to prevent a tantrum.
Note about the story
Art defacement: This was a bug in the game and not caused by what I thought it was at the time. It happened because Meng Berdakas, Dwarven Master Chef made a masterful roast entirely of liquid ingredients (booze and maybe milk), and the "roast" decomposed into a puddle of booze and maybe milk, shortly after its completion. This was very mysterious at the time and I did not know about the DF bug tracker.
So, just to clarify, there was in fact no Urist McGuilty. I never knew this until long after the end of Nutscaves, though.
So, just to clarify, there was in fact no Urist McGuilty. I never knew this until long after the end of Nutscaves, though.
Note about the story
Throughout Saga of Nutscaves, I often refer to myself, the player, as Armok. When I edited the story for my blog, I began trying to remove these references to “Armok”, but soon I realized the story wasn't the same without them. The current revision holds all the original references.
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