Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nomad]

Hiya, i haven't played Df for a long while but thought i might pick it up again with the new version.

I'm having a pretty good time so far (took a while to gen the world though, even with just 250 years of history)

I have problem that's been cropping up lately. since the last migrant wave i have routinely at least 15 idlers, sometimes over 20 of just about 30 dwarves. I think i need to take a serious look at my labour management. What stragies do you have? i have not yet gotten into the weapon industry much this time around and don't have much of a militia yet, as i said it's been a while.

Even though i have both a tower and goblins listed as neighbours so far i only had wandering elves and trade caravans. I still think i should get on building a defense force, there have been a few succesful moods already.

Speaking of visitors, there are by now i think 5 or 6 elves flitting about my liubrary and meeting hall, what's their deal? There is a mercenary, a scholar, a beast hunter (who arrived even before i opened the caverns), a bard and i think just a traveler who have been just hanging around for about a year ingame. Not that i mind, i have plenty of food and drink to share but still, they don't seem to be doing anything. I read that they are supposed to apply for resiendship and stuff, but they did nothing of the sort. Do i need a mayor before they can do that?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[PatrikLundell]

Unless you've changed the parameters, goblins (and megabeasts) only visit once you have 80 dorfs (50 for semi megabeasts). Necros have no manners whatsoever, and can arrive in the first summer.

The most commonly used tool for labor management is Dwarf Therapist, and there's a DFHack Dwarf Manipulator as well. There is also one or two DFHack auto labor managers which I know little about.

Visitors who come to petition for residence state that as a reason for their visit, and the majority does not petition. Mercs petition only once, to be come residents, but not a second time (to become citizens). Mercs can only be used in squads (and not as squad leaders: that requires a citizen). Performers and scholars who petition for residency will petition for citizenship two years later (assuming the first petition was accepted). In the interim, performers are rather useless tavern patrons, while scholars study in the library and may write a book (which goes for visiting scholars as well, although the latter are infamous for "borrowing" the last book they read when leaving the fortress, although they may leave a book they brought while arriving behind). Once citizenship is granted the party's over for performers, as they're now full citizens and can be assigned any jobs you like, just as with migrants (that goes for scholars as well, but you probably want to keep them in the library).

Petition acceptance is handled by the Expedition Leader before you get a Mayor.

I know little about the new additions (monster hunters, peddlers, prophets, etc.), although I know that artifact seekers tend to invade fortresses, ignoring the visitor cap parameter, and bringing the FPS down to unplayable levels. Given the small number of visitors you've gotten, I suspect you're in a low pop world that doesn't have too many visitors to send to you.

[warwizard]

 Now you have asked what strategies we use, so here is my strategy:

  Starting forts that have no legendary skills yet, get every labor assigned to every dwarf, with some exceptions:
Woodcutting, mining and hunting are mutually exclusive. Always assign marks dwarves to hunting, Axe dwarves to wood chopping. and my medical staff gets no jobs that will take them outside the fortress, so no beekeeping, shearing, milking, plant gathering, fishing, hunting or wood chopping, and no hauling for the doctors.

  Once I start getting moods, the newly minted legendary dwarf is assigned to be the only user of their own personal workshop of the correct type, all other labors continue to be enabled, so that the dwarf is kept busy even when I do not need more masterwork masonry items built at the moment. I keep general masonry workshops open to all comers for jobs like make rock blocks that have no quality on the output, and put jobs that do matter on the skill in the workshop for the legendry dwarf.

  I often find that this leads to the dwarves themselves deciding which things they like to do, and a dwarf may reach legendry status without mooding, and at that point I'm pretty sure that I have a driven hard working dwarf to put to work making masterpieces.

  The downside to this method is I will have a lot of lower quality items in my early fort than if you force your dwarves to specialize, the upside is unless I have been lazy and have not ordered things to be done, I seldom have any dwarves without a job, and if I do, I take a look at that dwarf. (Dull Urist values idle time and does not see the value in hard work.....! ok military squad for you , you damn lazy SOB)

[nomad]

Thank you, that does seem like a decent way to keep the idlers busy. The only not possessed mood i had so far produced a legendary engraver, but at least my dining hall looks nice.

[warwizard]

I had Dwarf #20 (I number them as they enter the map, start the embark) mood and become legendary metal smith (artifact crutch, claimed as heirloom) I order one statue made from gold, and he makes a statue (masterwork) of dwarf #19, so I put that in #19's room, along with a masterwork gold weapon rack, and engravings through out, a little time passes, and #19 moods, happy mood... and claims a mason shop and makes a gold bin worth 118,300 dwarf bucks, claimed in the name of family ancestor (dwarf #18, deceased) so I built it into #19's as well. My nobles are going to be SO pissed off about that room once I get nobles, but as this is early fort with still a manager, not a mayor, no worries for now. The point is you can target a dwarf for happy thoughts so they are less likely to get the possessed moods.

[smithist]

Something worth noting I think: idling isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Even early on when your pop is in the 20s to 30s, it's almost not practical to have every single dwarf doing something. To simply keep a fortress running doesn't actually require that much labor. As long as basic functions don't go off the rails and the stuff you want done gets done, don't worry about it.

[Stormfeather]

My own strategy is to simply give each adult dwarf a nickname as they migrate in (or as I start with them, or as they grow from childhood) that reflects their basic job. (Or reflects the fact that they're one of my military, although it might also have some sort of tie-in with their civilian job as well, such as "Spearfisher" or something.) I usually assign these based on what skills the given dwarf has, although if I already have a lot of that type of profession, I'll just assign them to (and name them after) whatever it is I need. (I usually end up with waaaay too many fishing-skilled dwarfs coming in, frex, so a lot of those will get assigned elsewhere and just have to build their new skills up.)

My starting dwarfs are:

-Hagglestone, A broker/expedition leader that also has jewelcrafting and is a miner and architect (jewelcrafting isn't something that useful at the start, other than maybe getting some gems for trading, but it's nice as something relatively unimportant that won't get in the way of their other jobs, and I have them mining at the start anyway).
-Bookworm, A bookkeeper that is also a miner on the side and also my starting mechanic
-Doc, the dwarf with all the medical skills who's my chief medical dwarf (naturally), and also a miner until I start getting injuries (or in between them)
-Wildstepper, my sheriff/captain of the guard, also my hunter/starting animal trainer until I get one or two dedicated ones
-Woodfriend, who has all the wood labors plus woodcrafting, and is also my champion when one is available
-Stonefriend, my hammerer, who has all the stone labors plus stonecrafting, plus architect, and starts out with mining but has that taken away fairly quickly as I need to start building things
-Farmfriend, my militia commander (who I just use as a useless noble and don't give an actual squad), who has all the farm labors to start with, plus woodcutting to help get some wood at the start.

Out of the first and second migrant waves, I try to quickly assign:
-A dedicated butcher/tanner/leathercrafter, which I then take off of Farmfriend
-A dedicated bonecarver since I usually use a lot of bone bolts/craft totems out of any hunted critters, which are good fodder for trading
-At least one extra miner
-A chef or brewer, which also takes on the second job temporarily until I get another dwarf dedicated to that
-A manager, although this usually ends up waiting til the second wave, since I also give them some not-as-demanding civilian job like papermaking and bookbinding, and they're pretty much a hauler until then since that can get ditched easily for managing work orders
-A fisherdwarf, not so much that I really intend to assign that early (although it is helpful for an early food supply to supplement hunting/farming), but because as mentioned there tend to be so many of them anyhow
-My first two military captains, a melee squad and an archer squad. (I name my military captains after the Bleach squad leaders for some reason.)

From there, I try to get other things like dedicated furnace workers (who also cover things like lye making, etc.), a cloth-worker, maybe yet another miner or two, the chef or brewer to take over the "extra' job on the first one, a dedicated beekeeper, a metalworker, eventually a dwarf dedicated JUST to animal training and handling (I tend to run animal-heavy forts, I love taming wild animals to make into pets/breed them up for food and/or protection), a couple more engineers, a potter, a glassworker... yeah, basically I just try to make sure that I have at least one or two dwarfs to cover every task, with some tasks (like mining and especially farming) having more dedicated to them, and eventually possibly starting to go even more specific with the jobs, like a dedicated miller if I have a bunch of plants that need to be milled (usually that's one of the catch-all farming skills that is assigned to every generic farmer I have).

...Sorry, this ended up being longer than intended.

[CaptainArchmage]

Firstly, we don't have the goblin ambushes anymore. We have goblin sieges over 80 dwarves, but those aren't hidden. I don't know if the tower siege has changed or not though, sieges may have reduced in frequency.

Apparently one way to get a siege is to attack or raid a nearby settlement.

Visitors come to check out locations, typically libraries or taverns. Scholars will come and take part in the research or debates that go on, and maybe settle permanently and become citizens. Other people will just read the books I think, if you have a few of them stored. In taverns, it's drinking and taking part in performances. Bards will lead performances. You can get a LOT of guests, over 100 for some people.

The expedition leader will also take residency and citizenship applications.

I haven't had enough time pass to have visitors and so on in my DF2017 fort.

There are wrongs ways to do your dwarf working strategy, but there are multiple right ways. One way to save your fuel is to dig down to the magma and establish a secure (not open) access down there.