I find that one of the big problems I kept facing in my first few fortresses was containers for Booze... It makes a huge difference to actually take the time and set up dedicated booze stockpiles, with the proper barrels dedicated just for them. Making sure your Booze Industry is up also keeps the supply of seeds flowing.

@gladspooky: Hrm, alright. I defiantly have seeds too. My current theory is that a farmer is carrying around a seed barrel while another farmer is trying to do the same thing.

And one more question: I've read that "Individual combat training" is the soldiers version of on break. When I go into Dwarf Therapist, it shows them as having no job.

I have a barracks set up for training. So is ICT actually training, or have I missed something?

@Slay3r1583: @FoolishChaos: The seed thing is a real bummer. Its a new bug that has to do with how dwarves go and handle items. Your problem is. All your seeds are stored in a barrel. Well. Joe farmer says "I NEED A PLUMP HELMET SPAWN LEMME GO GET THAT" "WAIT WE DONT HAVE ANY". Thats because either Jane Farmer has picked up the entire barrel to plant one seed or Frank Hauler has gone to collect the seeds from a table that a dwarf left behind taking all your seeds with him. Easy way to curb the problem is to make a dedicated seed stockpile and set the max barrel limit to 0. That will force the dwarves to either store them outside of containers or in smaller bags that hopefully won't have all your seeds tied up in one container.

Also, Anybody can harvest plants, if i recall. If you started a big task like "Carry all the rocks in the fortress to this large stockpile" All your haulers might be preoccupied and nobody may be paying attention to rotting crops. Once you get 30 or 40 dwarves in your fortress you need to disable hauling on all your important dwarves who have better things to do with your time and disable everyting BUT hauling on 10 or so dwarves so your goods are always moving but your legendary farmer isnt moving a dead animal carcass from point a to point b instead of keeping your fortress fed.

Yeah, what he said. I keep my seeds on a small stockpile right next to the farm, and forbid seeds in the general food stockpile. And I don't use barrels to store them. They come like twenty to a bag or something, and that's good enough.

@FoolishChaos said:

@gladspooky: Hrm, alright. I defiantly have seeds too. My current theory is that a farmer is carrying around a seed barrel while another farmer is trying to do the same thing.

And one more question: I've read that "Individual combat training" is the soldiers version of on break. When I go into Dwarf Therapist, it shows them as having no job.

I have a barracks set up for training. So is ICT actually training, or have I missed something?

I believe it's actual training. I went and did a little test, my DT also said he had no job, but his experience went up a bit (Albeit, it was almost nothing!)

Alright, just want to make sure there isnt some mythical "Group combat training" im missing out on. Because yeah these skills are going up slooooooow.

But then again these 4 guys killed two ogres literally within turns of forming the squad, so maybe the actual skill level isn't as important as just having some iron weapons?

@FoolishChaos said:

Alright, just want to make sure there isnt some mythical "Group combat training" im missing out on. Because yeah these skills are going up slooooooow.

But then again these 4 guys killed two ogres literally within turns of forming the squad, so maybe the actual skill level isn't as important as just having some iron weapons?

Oh there is Group training too.

It's also slow, but at least you can count on the Dwarves always doing it.

All you need to do is go into your squad screen, select the squad, edit their orders, and then set it so that they train whatever months you want them to AND MAKE SURE THAT THE MINIMUM DWARVES IS SET TO YOUR SQUAD SIZE OR LESS. Otherwise they won't do it.

One of my masons just bit a kobold thief's foot off and then bashed its head in. Now there's blood all over my main hall.

This game is nuts.

Alright, just want to make sure there isnt some mythical "Group combat training" im missing out on. Because yeah these skills are going up slooooooow.

But then again these 4 guys killed two ogres literally within turns of forming the squad, so maybe the actual skill level isn't as important as just having some iron weapons?

Okay, still trying to figure out this group training thing out.

1. I went into dwarf therapist and made it so my soldiers had NO active labors. Nothing is selected.

2. I went into the squad menu for orders, and made it so every month had training with 1 minimum soldier required. I did this for both active and inactive "alerts", though im not sure what this means.

3. My barracks is selected for my squad, and is set to allow them to train and sleep there. There is an S and a T next to the Inky Infantry (my squad).

Once I saw my militia commander try to set up a group training, but that never resulted in anything, and most of my soldiers have no job.

@FoolishChaos: Okay, now we are getting into the grounds where I have no experience. I'm making my own military as we speak(and steel weapons). What happens if you raise your minimum soldiers to "all soldiers" - 1. (Don't put it at at all because I hear that if you do they will obey your orders completely and not eat or drink) Maybe the one guy wont group train but since the min is only 1 they decided to follow that to the letter. (lazy jerks). That's just a guess though.

Here's a tip. Don't set up your fortress anywhere near a haunted are unless you want to be constantly fighting off the undead including any dwarves or animals you lose. Hilarious.

So, after getting my fort up and running for a year, I started running into the problem of farmers no longer planting seeds- it simply says that they need the appropriate seed, when it says I have around 140 of that type of seed in my kitchen, two floors down. Why won't they plant anything when I have a barrel full of the damn seeds?

@isnipeyoudie said:

So, after getting my fort up and running for a year, I started running into the problem of farmers no longer planting seeds- it simply says that they need the appropriate seed, when it says I have around 140 of that type of seed in my kitchen, two floors down. Why won't they plant anything when I have a barrel full of the damn seeds?

It's a bug. Make a small stockpile next to your farm with no barrels activated. Seed barrels apparently confuse dwarves.

@gladspooky said:

@isnipeyoudie said:

So, after getting my fort up and running for a year, I started running into the problem of farmers no longer planting seeds- it simply says that they need the appropriate seed, when it says I have around 140 of that type of seed in my kitchen, two floors down. Why won't they plant anything when I have a barrel full of the damn seeds?

It's a bug. Make a small stockpile next to your farm with no barrels activated. Seed barrels apparently confuse dwarves.

Do bins confuse them too? Apparently the seeds are in a wooden bin.

Probably. Without bins or barrels, dwarves just store seeds in bags, anyway.

My tip: Always remember, "Winter is coming." My first three forts didn't last past their first winter, as they all died of thirst. A good way to avoid this is to start brewing immediately. I'm still learning, and for now I only play in warm environments to be safe. Freezing is the least possible way to have fun. It's much more satisfying to be massacred by goblins or something.

@Daveyo520 said:

@Loafsmooch: I am a big fan of the Ironhand set. I think it has the best pixel work of all of them.

Loves me some Ironhand. I've tried several others and nothing touches it, IMO.

Oh Dave >< So stubborn.

@BoG said:

My tip: Always remember, "Winter is coming." My first three forts didn't last past their first winter, as they all died of thirst. A good way to avoid this is to start brewing immediately. I'm still learning, and for now I only play in warm environments to be safe. Freezing is the least possible way to have fun. It's much more satisfying to be massacred by goblins or something.

The *first* thing you should do if you are in a safe enough biome (no undead walking around or too savage of creatures) is get at least an above ground farm going if not an underground one. Food is almost priority one for me when starting a new fort as you can survive a lot of things, but starvation is not one of those. Also for those unaware, Dwarfs *will* drink fresh water sources, but get very grumpy when they don't get booze after awhile, and will not work as efficiently. Some personalities seem to get aggressive easier when going without booze as well.

Another good hint is remember to go into your status screen(z) and hit up the kitchen menu(use your arrows to move to it then hit enter), then disable the booze you embarked with from being used in cooking (toggled with c). This will keep your cooks from using that wine you just busted ass to make in food.

Also make sure when making food to just go ahead and always use "prepare lavish meal" as it takes longer, but improves the dwarfs mood better. Useful bit on lavish meals, they use 4 items instead of 2 (easy) or 3 (fine), yet take up the same amount of space in stockpiles, giving more room for food in general. Cooked food also lasts a lot longer exposed than raw.

edit: Forgot to mention to leave plump helmets off the cooking list as well at first so that your dwarfs will eat some raw plump helmets and generate more seeds. Though when I embark I hardly bring any plump helmets due to cost (4) and instead bring seeds which cost (1).

Alright, my turn to ask for help as I attempt to breach the justice system and military systems. So the guy who enforces rules around your base uhh. Captain of the guard. How many people should he have in his squad? I've heard that you need to deck them out with crossbows or something else particularly non lethal so that they don't kill everyone who exports a window. Also, does his squad actually need to train at all? Thanks in advance. I'm just trying to get my poor military off the ground.. And equipped with hammers.

@jesterroyal:

You actually want them to NOT train at all, you want to purposely pick the weakest people you can, I would also suggest giving them wooden training weapons or keep them from picking up weapons. As for numbers, you really don't need many at all, 2-3 should be more than fine. Make sure to not assign them to a barracks, or they will train there, and get stronger. Good armor helps in case they do get attacked for some reason, but these guys should be as weak as possible.

As for Military in general, make sure to have a couple spears/axes/swords as backup, as nothing but hammers can be a problem with certain forgotten beasts.