I think it's just for feel-good until the dwarven economy kicks in, when they need to store their money somewheres.


Ouch man, that's rough. I've never played without DT, it's just so much easier.

Maybe you should try putting your dorfs into off duty?

I do, and they just go stand in the 'fort meeting area', IE My great hall. they don't actually practice for some reason.

The door was flush with the walls, and unfortunately, due to poor planning, right near the entrance. Had I built a wall there, caravans wouldn't be able to get to my trade depot. And yes, the body did rot, but I had already installed a floor hatch over the water hole. In the very least the room is usable for other things now.

Dwarves will put items into barrels with like things, and if there are none, or all are full, get a new barrel.
With the insane amount of crops and meat you might have (I'm guessing), all the barrels go on them. Make a large "Drinks Only" food stockpile with max barrels, and lower the others, as has been said before.

I found Adamantine!
When my Addy King arrives, he isn't getting any rooms. Nobody gets rooms! A single bed will suffice for all.
Goblin Sieges are going alright. I've not had to use a single one of my 6x5 traps at the entrance (cage, cage, weapon, weapon, cage, cage). My 20 strong squad of Marksdwarves took care of the last one (which included their local leader... now where are my *Legendary Goblin Bone Bolts [10]*)

Uh, y'know, there are some better ways of dealing with an aquifer. Allow me to point a few flaws in your theory:

1- Aquifer are really big, usually map-wide, so you'd need an absurd amount of open space to drain them;

2- Since they're map-wide, the only way of freeing up such an amount of space would be to completely dig up the levels directly below the aquifer;

3- if you already have a way of getting below the aquifer, draining it would be somewhat redundant;

4- digging such enormous open spaces is sure to cause big cave-ins;

5- Aquifers are very useful features: not only do they provide infinite amounts of water, meaning your dwarves will never die of thirst, they can also magically absorb infinite amounts of water, no matter how much you pour into it. So, instead of draining your aquifer into the world, why not draining the ocean into your aquifer? Bonus points if you make it lever-controlled, so that you can refill it over any invading armies.

As for going through the aquifer, you can either use a cave-in to create an artificial island, pour magma into it to create dig-able areas of obsidian, or if you're in a cold map, just expose the aquifer to the surface: it'll instantly freeze, allowing you to dig through it.




Coffers work as Duh said, and are kinda useless if you don't have an economy, but cabinets serve the purpose of storing your dwaves' clothing, which is pretty useful, specially if you want to avoid your sparring soldiers leaving their ripped-off clothing all over your barracks.


On a slightly unrelated sidenote, what about megaconstructions? Has anyone here decided to leave their permanent, gigantic personal mark in the world of DF? I'm currently trying to build a gigantic ice spire hanging on top of a lava lake, but food shortages are hindering my progress considerably.

Digging out large areas won't cause cave ins. The only thing that will is if a section of ground is completely disconnected from another. One support can hold up the earth. Which is good, for cap farms and the like.
You can also disable cave-ins.

Aww, but that's no Fun. It also makes the pressure plate, support, floor tile circle trap unusable.

okay, I think I had a bit of confusion here and mistook what an aquifer is. I thought it was when you had water thats closed off under ground like a bubble. cause those keep getting in the way. i'm currently on a map that's only got 1 kind of stone : Obsidian, it has no magma vent, no bottomless pit, but it has an AQUIFER. and everywhere I dig, 'wet stone found digging canceled' I only got like 30 units of obsidian before every outer wall was 'wet'. and now I can't find a spot I can dig down into.

I was going to build a 100% obsidian tower directly above my entrance, where the inner-most part is out-doors and contains by trade depot. lots of obsidian fortifications and doors. Just so I can have my obsidian spire.... but I can't do that with only 30~ obsidian

as for the collapse thing... your all wrong, if you dig out the entire map and leave only one support in the middle, it will collapse. mostly if what's on top looses balance. mind you i'm not talking at -1 to -5 zlevels, i'm talking like -10 and below second, if you leave a support every so many spaces you should be fine. I dig out a big grid, and leave all the intersections... usually 5x5 to 10x10.

anyway..... sorry 'bout that, mis-understood what an aquifer was. also flood the world with a tower full of pumps.

Dwarf Fortress physics disagree Miles. A single pillar could support the entire map if it needed to.

Okay, note to self, NEVER appoint a Champion wrestler as captain of the Fortress Guard. Some poor bugger missed a mandate of making a ring or something and got smashed into a wall and died.
Of course, I immediately replaced the captain with somebody else. I only later discovered that the newly-appointed captain was actually the aforementioned poor bugger's wife. I can only hope she won't make the same mistake.
Still, I've only lost 3 dwarves throughout the 4-and-a-bit years that this fortress has been going, and the current population is at 98. Having said that, I'm probably going to be under attack by at least 3 massive armies of goblins within a 2-minute interval.
Also, I'd really like to make a note to the dwarf who keeps barfing down the ramps that lead to the front entrance: please stop it. The caravans are probably wondering why there's a thin coat of vomit on their wheels every time they come through the fortress.

okay so. a kobold showed up, and stole an axe. the trouble is, I only had 1 axe, and it was equipped on my woodcutter dwarf... my woodcutter was standing right next to the kobold, so logically it stole it from him. My woodcutter killed the kobold, and it dropped the axe. I looked, my dwarf had his axe still equipped...

This has happened 2 times now, once now, and once in a previous game... I now have 2 woodcutters, and a bug to report. How do I report this to the toadyone? do I have to post it in the DF Forums or can I just email him?

Miles the collapse system you mentioned was true when dinosaurs roamed the earth
and dwarf fortresses were all contained in a single Z-level (As in, 2D, no Z-level, ages ago)

Also: Cool game. My fortress is on a single flat plain with a magma pipe and a brook.
Every so often I lose dwarves to horrible map-wide wildfires started by some imp.
Right now I'm connecting all the surrounding ponds into a moat.
Later I plan to do some pumping with the water and replace it whit hot lava.


Post your fortresses here guys http://www.mkv25.net/dfma/

Pike have claimed three of my best peons.
I'm bringing in the chapions now.

EDIT: Fun fact. If you deconstruct a Trade Depot while traders are on it, especially douchbag traders who charge 30,000 profit, then all the wares that are spread out on the floor are yours for the taking.

Also, Protip. Always have the broker trade, no matter how long he takes.

Note to other modders. Do not make caravans have 10x weight limits and then use the trick above. They slap down 100000+ items of all sorts (the seeds, the SEEDS!) and slow down your entire game with no easy way to get rid of them all. Though you'll have a ♥♥♥♥ load of items.

Cave in. Or magma.