Explanation
We have established the bare necessities in our self-sustaining little outpost. Now let's lay down some plans and build a permanent foundation for our future fortress. A fortress that will one day hold many dwarves, house efficient industry, extract riches from the earth, and become a trade hub for the human, elf, and dwarven nations. Let's set down the foundation for metropolis utopia that will be the envy of all our neighbors!This tutorial will guide you in laying such a foundation by allowing you to work through different sections that build off the knowledge you acquired in Phase 1. These do not need to be done in the order that they are given, but they are all helpful for new players to understand.
Animals and Pastures
You may have noticed that you have some animals wandering around your meeting hall. Let's zone off some pasture land so that they can graze on the surface and not starve to death where your dwarves are trying to enjoy their food.First, lets go to the surface. You can zone off an area with [I]. Lets do that now. Zone off a large section of grassy land. Once you have selected the area you want zoned off and press [enter] you have the choice to tell your dwarves what type of zone you have just created for them. Using the options present in the [I] mode tell them that this is a Pasture.
Now, while still in [I] mode you can press [N] to tell your dwarves which animals belong in this pasture.
Note: this menu also allows you place other (less friendly) creatures that you own into a pasture.
Note 2: Enemies (goblins) who get stuck in a cage trap are considered 'creatures that you own'.
The Importance of Storage: Bins and Barrels
Storage is extremely important for any fortress. Barrels are required to keep food, seeds, and alcohol. Bins can be used to store a lot of smaller items (clothes, crafts, gems, weapons, etc.) in one square of your stockpile instead of filling it up too quickly (this is especially useful for Finished items created at the Craftdwarf's workshop). We are going to need lots and lots of storage so lets have our carpenter get to work on some more barrels and bins.Putting Rocks to Good Use
Carpenters aren't the only ones who can create furniture. Masons can also create many of the things required around the fortress. Since rock is always more plentiful than trees and since we are fricken Dwarves, lets build a Mason's Workshop and put him to use making Doors, Tables, and Chairs.Planning out the Fortress Proper
Every fortress has three main areas.- Storage - Where resources and items are kept
- Industry - Where resources are used to make new items
- Residential - Where Dwarves go to sleep
Even our tiny little fortress has these things. As we plan for a permanent fortress though, we need to consider where to place things so that dwarves don't have to run around a labyrinth and half way across the map in order to pick up the resource they need at their workshop.
For the purpose of this tutorial I am going to suggest a very simple layout that has each area as its own level in your fortress connected at several places with stairs.
Storage
Have your storage level be the largest and fill it with different types of stockpiles. This is where all the wood and rocks will go for making furniture along with all cloth, gems, crafts, and all other items that your fortress needs and creates. Lining up these stockpiles with the workshops in the Industrial floor will make your fortress more efficient.
Industry
Have your Industry level either directly above or below the storage level and place workshops appropriate to the stockpile they are near. (Carpenters Workshops close to where they can grab wood and drop off furniture, Jewelry Workshop close to where the gems are kept, Masons close to where stones are kept and where furniture is dropped off).
Consider building at least the following workshops to start off:
- Carpenters
- Masons
- Craftdwarfs
- Leatherworks and Tanners
- Jewellers
- Clothiers
* don't be afraid to make multiple of the same type of workshop,
Obviously you will not know precisely which workshop goes with which resources / items, but that is the joy of Dwarf Fortress, constantly learning and making things more efficient. Don't sweat it, you can make changes as you learn things.
Residential
Finally we have the residential area. Dwarves like to have their own rooms. The residential area will be where all these rooms are. Each room needs to be at least 3 but need not be more than 4 squares large and have a bed inside. Remember to [q] each bed to turn them into individual rooms. Dwarves will claim vacant rooms as their own.
Dwarves also get happy thoughts if their rooms are furnished with doors, cabinets, chests / coffers, or other more decorative items.
And of course, our meeting hall will need to be expanded to accommodate many dwarves eating and drinking. You could have it as part of one of your floors or make it its own floor until itself! Just remember that it will need close proximity to food / alcohol.
Feel free to proceed to the next section while your miners are busily carving our your designs.
Intermediate Stockpile Use
You know how to use the basic Stockpile functions but did you know that you can also use the custom stockpile options to specify exactly what can and can not be stored there? Let's put these more advanced stockpile options to a practical use. We currently have one large food stockpile that has all food, alcohol, and seeds stored within it. Let's break it up into three stockpiles, one for food, one for alcohol, and one for seeds. The benefit of doing this will be that you will be able to see at a glance roughly how much alcohol is left and whether or not you need to brew more drinks.It might also be useful to have a stockpile that only accepts empty barrels so that when all the food / alcohol from a barrel is consumed the empty barrel is removed so that you get an even more accurate reading at a glance. Let's put this one by the Still so that they don't have to walk very far to grab an empty barrel.
- Hint: Barrels are considered a 'Furniture' item.
- Note: It is important to carefully read what you are disabling in the advanced Stockpile settings. Do not just disable everything in the Furniture submenus except for barrels. If you disable material types (for instance) then your stockpile only accept barrels made out of nothing and so all your wooden barrels would not be allowed in the stockpile.
Take some time to wrestle through these settings, you will find them useful as you continue to play Dwarf Fortress.
Preparing for Trade
At this point it is important to prepare to trade with your neighbors. The first Dwarven trade caravan will be arriving in Autumn in your first year (in addition to every year hereafter) and then you can expect elves in the spring and humans in the summer next year.The first thing you need is a Trade Depot. Place this larger building outside on the surface so that the caravan wagons can access it.
The second thing you will need to do is create goods to trade. For the purpose of this tutorial build a craftdwarf's workshop (if you have not already) and set it to make rock crafts on repeat. This has a fourfold benefit to your fortress.
- Ensures a supply of trade goods that you can use to barter with during trade.
- Cleans up a bunch of rocks from your fortress floor
- The craftdwarf earns XP in stonecraft skill so that future goods are worth more.
- It ensures you have 'ethical wares' to trade with the elves. If you offer them any wooden items during trade they will become very offended.
The third thing you should do is name a Broker, someone who is the designated trader for your fortress. This is covered in Phase 3.
How to Trade and what to Trade for is covered in part 7
Prepare for Migrants
It won't be long before your first wave of migrants comes to make your fortress their home. This means that extra beds should be ready and extra bedrooms assigned. It also means that your workforce will increase. Make a mental note of what jobs you can put new workers to when they get here. You can expect anywhere between 2 and 10 within the first wave.Expanding the menu
Plump helmets are nice and your dwarves will survive eating / drinking pump helmets till the end of time, but they will not be happy. You want to make your dwarves happy don't you? Let's expand the menu a little bit, or at least make plans to expand it once migrants arrive.There are four methods of gathering food. I am going to outline them here and allow you the chance to choose one or two and figure them out.
- Plants
You are already acquainted with the basics of farming. There are several underground crops and even more overland crops that can be grown at different times of the year. Not all of them are for eating or brewing though. I'll let you do some searching online to figure out which ones are a source of food.
During summer and autumn many trees will have fruit and nuts that can be picked by setting a forage zone (remember zones are made with [i] and that you will need to specify what type of zone it is) underneath them and keeping a supply of stepladders on hand.
Another way to gather edible plants is to [d]esignate [p]lants to be gathered. Any useful / edible plants will be put into barrels and added to your food storage. This is a good way of acquiring overland crop seeds before you can trade for them.
- Meat
There are two ways to put meat onto the table. Both ways require a Butcher's Workshop and a dwarf with the 'Butcher' job enabled. Be sure to build a Tanner's workshop beside the Butcher's workshop so that the hide of the animal being butchered can be tanned into leather which does not go bad and can be used to make clothing / armor / other useful items. Also make sure that you have a Refuse Stockpile not too far away from the butcher (preferably behind a door and away from your dwarves) so that the bones + skulls can be kept crafts and items created from bones.
The first way of acquiring meat is to designate one of your tame animals for slaughter. To do this, press [z] for Stocks and move to the Animal section. This will give you a list of all the animals in your possession and the option to slaughter them. Once designated the animal will be lead to the Butcher's shop and all its meat / body parts will be hauled to appropriate stockpiles throughout your fortress!
The second way of acquiring meat is to have hunters. Sometimes migrants will already be hunters, they will come equipped with a crossbow, a quiver, and some bolts and will begin stalking the countryside for game to kill. They will bring their kills to the butcher's shop. Make sure that you have a stockpile of bolts ready to go so that your hunters do not run out. Note that overzealous hunting CAN (over time) permanently deplete the animal populations that visit your map. - Fish
If you have any ponds, a river, or an ocean in your map then you can have your dwarves fish. Fishing requires no special tools, just to have the fishing job enabled. Build yourself a Fishcleaner's shop and your dwarves will be able to prepare the fish for eating.
Stagnant ponds can be fished out but rivers and oceans cannot. - 'Prepared Meals'
You can have your dwarves create 'prepared meals' out of the different ingredients available within your fortress by building a kitchen. You can add a job to prepare a meal from 1, 2, or 3 ingredients. Note that prepared meals do not yield seeds like eating or brewing do for plants.
Some plants (like Cave Wheat and Sweet Pods) can be milled first to yield seeds and the resulting flour + syrup can be used as an ingredient for prepared meals. The process is a little long to explain but some basic research online will point you in the right direction.
You can instruct your dwarves about which foods can be used for prepared meals by going into the stocks with [z] and then moving to the Kitchen tab.
Keeping the Danger Outside
If you chose a "peaceful" or "serene" location when you embarked then you won't have to worry about predators and nasty goblins for a while. But just so that you are prepared for when they DO come lets build a drawbridge at the entrance of the fortress and a lever to make it go up and down.To do this you will need to [b]uild a brid[g]e and use the um/kh keys to set its size. Before you hit enter you will also need to set its raise direction using awsd keys. The little arrow represents which way the drawbridge will rise. You will want to place the drawbridge so that when it is up it blocks access to the rest of your fort. If danger appears on the horizon simply raise the drawbridge to keep it outside.
Once you set the plans down a dwarf with the Architecture job enabled will gather the supplies and build the bridge.
To control your drawbridge you will need to attach a lever to it. Levers (and attaching bridges to them) require mechanisms which are constructed at a Mechanics Workshop [b-w-t].
Once you have a lever and 2 extra mechanisms you will need to Q onto the lever to attach the bridge.
Take caution when lowering bridges... anything underneath will be crushed to death.
Take caution when your dwarves are upset... they may pull random levers when in a tantrum.
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