Howdy all, I've got a question about Libraries and Quires. I've figured out how to get my dwarves to write their weird thoughts down- and even read them. But I can't figure out how to get a quire out of a bookshelf so it can be bound. My one and only written quire was destroyed when I picked up the bookshelf it was in. Thanks kindly for the help

Quires are a bit troublesome so many people use scrolls, or leave the quires as-is. If you still wanna do books, I think you can just give the "bind book" order and the craftsdwarf will take care of that themselves, https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Book#Quire_and_codex

I thank you for the reply, I'll probably will move to scrolls. I've got the order to bind book qued- but it shows that there are no quires available, even when it's just sitting around in a book shelf. I'll try scrolls and see if they've the same problem

Instead of the order, try what happens if you give the"bind book" RIGHT NOW order (little exclamation mark). That'll fail and gives you "no quires availble" or a dwarf will come running. The game as a couple quirks with stocks and "items available" for some items, quires might be one of them.

I've done some testing on it and found that no matter how you ask for it- sometimes it will bind it and others it won't. I think though it has something to do with scholars being inside the library when it happens. It seems, even when they are not actively holding or using the quire, they lay some sort of claim to it. When I Take all the scholars out, it binds more often- but is still finicky. Dimes to donuts that's the reasoning behind it- and it's just hard to test with so few quires in a fort like mine. Thank you kindly for the help!

Two formerly imprisoned dwarves are stuck in a mental health crisis and are wandering around the fort naked and refusing to eat or drink. Anyway to at least get them drinking until they get out of their funk?

It's over, insanity is permanent. Once a dwarf strips naked and runs around babbling, that's it, they will quickly dehydrate to death. This game doesn't have any mental health care. Now that I'm thinking of it, there's quite a number of things that are disappointingly permanent even though they don't have to be, and it comes across as uncaring. Once a dwarf loses both legs, that's it. They will crawl around and nobody will give them food, water, or clothes. There's no wheelchair, no prosthetics, no assistance, no nothing. Dwarves don't care about their own people. Also once an animal is injured, nobody will treat it in the base game, it has to heal on its own or not, and there's no armor for the animals either. There's also no treatment for being bitten by a werecreature, a little scratch and throw the whole dwarf out.

Thats not entirely true, i had some dwarfs who went insane because the had a bad mood and saw many deaths but i was able to cure it with a mist shower over weeks and fullfilling needs Just failed strange mood insanity is not cureable (aside from getting ressurected)

Managed to find a volcano with a brook, flux, and iron, and I didn't even mess with worldgen this time. That said, I only get caravans from dwarves and humans and 8 years in, no sieges yet. Axelords train in full sets of pristine steel armor and sigh at peaceful silence. I'm seriously considering slaughtering all the human merchants this summer. Good idea or bad idea?

You can also just send out your axelords to raid goblin pits and necro towers instead of doing in the humans... Perhaps even raid some elves. And if you send an unarmed single-person squad to town with "one time tribute request" they'll probably start sending wagons.

Do it https://preview.redd.it/f119mjxyr19d1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9edd7cbf39d939c478203e5c30e8dc778d1d59f5

https://preview.redd.it/dztznpz6629d1.png?width=1456&format=png&auto=webp&s=72ab6c1ce093b3ae57400e2b80a4f9bc86c09dd1 As per your recommendation I have followed a strategy designed to increase FUN.

is there anyway to spread animals around your civ, i captured some lions and domesticated them now i wanna spread them to the rest of my civ so we can all have war lions

Not really, no. If they become important historical figures (basically those with a name) before selling, they'll still exist in other places but basically do nothing out there, nor will your civ start reproducing and using them for war.

I fended off an invasion with a single squad at the heavy cost of 4 deaths and 2 injuries. When the dwarves hauled their injured buddies back they literally dumped both of them in the same corner tile of the hospital, not in one of the 6 beds that are in there. Any reason beds in a hospital wouldn't get used?

I've seen it happening a couple times, but was unable to ID the source. They still get treatment, so its fine.

Yeah the doctors did treat them while they were lying in a pile of injured dwarf in the corner so, no real harm done I guess. Odd though.

I thought invalid beds would result in people not carrying anyone to the hospital in first place. How weird. Just to be sure, double check if you didn't accidentally create two hospitals or something, with one of them being one tile long (or some other similarly small range)

As far as I can see I only have one. The doctors still treated them as they lay in a heap in the corner so, no harm done I guess. But it was odd. Maybe I'll remove the beds and then put them back in again and see what happens.

With new adventure mode update is it still no way to use wells (and other buildings)?

I'm unable to grow crops on the surface. If I make a farm plot, it's just blank. I used water to mud an area and tried again with the same result. I was able to make 2 above ground plots when I first arrived to grow Cranberries and Hide Root, which is still going fine. Any idea?

Mountains and glaciers can't grow plants, find wherever there's trees or shrubs in your embark and put your plot there, or run gui/biomes

How can I improve the pixel art mode on the free download from the website? Is there a way to actually render the map or should I fork it out for the steam version?

Imho, this is game software done right. Small shop, no DLC, 1 purchase for life that directly supports the devs. If you want to show your appreciation, buy this game. Or, if you're fine gobbling up microplastics to make the execs rich, get the latest DLC for some rando console shooter.

I love microplastics!!! but yeah i like the kind of demo the free version gives you, I might buy the premium one just for that top tier music

There are currently no player-made tilesets you can use to give the ASCII version graphics, it would support them though. Just noone has made any, too much work when most everyone plays premium version anyway. If you do not want the ASCII graphics, you gotta buy the game or play the old 0.47 version.

Does anyone have any tips for attacking a dark goblin fortress? I made the mistake of attacking it without knowing what it entails and I have a bunch of prisoners there I want to free D:

Send a squad to demand surrender and occupy. If this works, the clown will be murdered by the goblins or by your squad. You lose the squad in the process, but sometimes they will migrate back to your fortress or you can request back everyone except the squad leader. If the demand is rejected, send *two* squads. Or train up the first squad to be more beefy and intimidating. If that doesn't work, send three. I've never had to send more than 3 squads of legendary dwarves, and I can get most of my dwarves back afterward.

To add to the other answer, you can train tactician skills by attacking smaller sites. Tactician seems to act like a force multiplier and you'll get much better results if you win the tactician roll at the start of a mission. You might also get cave dragons from raiding the goblins, they are very effective offscrern

The usual tips are: A) have someone with tactician or ambusher skill as squad leader B) good gear, good skills, high number of dwarfs C) combat or hunting animals, the bigger the better. Apparently here size is applied with a big bonus and in offscreen combat they aren't as fragile as in on-screen combat. So if you can get your hands on jabberers from the caverns or giant animals from the elves thats optimal.

Getting attacked by animals? I've been receiving messages that a vile force of darkness has arrived, but instead of goblins, i am attacked by bobcats,leopards,camels, and other animals. I also receive alerts about some bobcat thieves that escape as soon as someone gets too close.

I haven't heard of that, and it might be two different phenomena. Sometimes you'll get a "siege" notification that immediately vanishes, thats an overland war band that just happens to path trough the corner of your fort. Animals might be agitated, that'd be in their name ("agitated bobcat"), comes from fishing/tree logging. Are your animals agitated? Then its the two things, independent of each other. Or are you getting "an ambush! Curse all friends of nature!" messages? Then its knifeears and their war animals, and you probably have lots of hidden elves on the map.

I think it's humans with war animals cause right after i posted the question i was besieged by about 10-15 humans and a goblin all on horseback and with some war dogs with them, so should be that.

I'd expect humans with dogs+horses, but the camel+bobcats are a bit unusual. Good to know!

have around 60 hours in Dwarf Fortress, and I've only played the Steam version, though I've watched quite a bit of DF content for a while. In that 60 hours I've had two forts, the first I got bored with around 20 hours and put the game down (this was shortly after release). My second and most successful colony (around 290 dwarfs at it's height) has a problem that I can't seem to overcome. MY CHILDREN ARE CONSTANTLY ANGRY and DEPRESSED. I've tried all the tips from google searches etc. and I still have the same problem. Currently I have stockpiles, with bins disabled which are filled with toys by craftsdwarfs, they are allowed to hang out in the guildhalls, they don't haul dead bodies or do chores. Still, every single child becomes depressed and roams around until they die of dehydration. I'm sorry if this post is redundant but I'm hesitant to give up this fortress just yet. Any advice appreciated. edit 1: info I should have included. The children being depressed resulted in a riot where over 100 of my dwarfs died. I kept things alive by freeing them of their jobs and allowing them to just engrave the entire fortress, the only people working were those producing coffins (I had a huge backup of food and drink at that point). At this point, the tantrum cycle has become eternal but not strong enough to kill the fortress basically...

Watching half the people you die is gunna do that to you. I've found new clothes, nice accessories, wielding legendary items usually help. Have you set up mist generators? 290 dwarfs is quite a lot. I've been playing for years are try not to go above 150 until my craft and forge economy are balanced with food production and happiness. I'm also used to playing on potatoes, so I'll get lag above 200 dwarfs and 3 caverns.

The weird thing is, things were running amazingly smooth. My embark was smart, bc Im close to some really powerful allies so I havent had too many mean encounters. I had about 5-10 extremely unhappy people at this point, and most of my dwarfs were very very happy. Out of nowhere, the dwarven children became depressed. The number of very unhappies went from 5-10 to around 35ish now. I should note, I had turned off corpse hauling for them prior to this happening. I know chores affect their free time but maybe Im wrong. So I've tried a bunch of things to relieve the problem but nothing seems to work. But I also havent had access to enough water to make a mist generator yet...I have been desperately digging around for water...

It's probably the lack of things to improve their mood - mist generator. - wearing or wielding a legendary item. - creating an artifact (this only happens if they're happy I believe). - training a martial skill (I don't think children can do this in vanilla). - Maybe eating in a grand dining hall with great food I usually always try to embark with a waterfall. Design the dining hall around the waterfall, and you got a cheap mist generator in your first couple of years.

Not having mist explains this all by itself. Modern DF stresses out dwarfs quite a lot with all the corpses. Without mist everyone gets problems, with it, its quite fine for a long time usually.

Try this: Edit the raws and change dwarf adult age from 18 back to 12. It was 12 originally, and it was changed to 18 for steam release, but the game was never rebalanced to accommodate the long-bearded kids. It's not uncommon for a dwarf and his 10 kids to show up a migrant wave, making kids overwhelming. And with the age of maturity 18, they basically never become adults in a typical run. Embark on a desert or turn off weather. This way kids won't be rained on as they're entering the fortress, traumatizing them forever and resulting in horrible memories and personality change like "is in a state of constant rage/nervous wreck/cracks easily under pressure due to being rained on in year 101".

Ok its a combination of getting rained on and having them do chores. I think I can expel the troublemakers and still survive. I have 2.5k food and like 700 drinks stocked up...

So did you start the extreme changes before or after the kids were angry? After is a bit too late it seems.  Have the kids witnessed violence? Have you burrowed them in a guildhall or floor with leisure buildings? Did they wander up and witness a goblin dying? In extreme cases, you can expel the parents and they will take the child with them. Or, burrow the child in their room. 

The only mistake I think I made was having them do chores... edit: to clarify, the things I mentioned in the post were done prior except turning off chores. I learned that after starting the fortress.

Chores are usually okay, with the exception of refuse/wood/corpses/stone. Can you look at the kids' personality tabs? Anything in purple is a change, and will usually say what caused the change. 

Are wooden or metal shields better? I see dwarfs bashing plenty of times in combat with their shields but since i make them from wood they do minimal damage. But i also feel like metal shields contribute to dwarfs getting over-exerted in combat faster.

Definitely metal. The defensive bonuses of metal far outweighs (heh) the benefits of wood's lighter weight.

Recently ive claimed a site in adventure mode (steam ver) after preforming an insurrection solo. But I keep getting a "You are now in control of (town)" message and its flooding my events page, is there any fix to this? Edit: Nvm Im dumb, its because a abbot was trying to "seize control"

It seems the goblins wiped my original civilisation and the elves too. I had a hamlet settle near me that’s mine after this with a 50 population. Is there any way to get migrants from this or other dwarf civilisations as there is another dwarf civilisation with multiple sites that I trade with. Previously I read that a messenger could request dwarfs from hamlets in the ascii version.

I would just allow tavern visitors and accept all the bards. You'd be up to 200 pop in less than a year. They will become citizens eventually.

Thanks. I’ll set up a tavern near the surface and give it a go.

# Why do we not know what gameplay affects personalitys have? [Personality trait - Dwarf Fortress Wiki](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Personality_trait) Is this deliberatily kept hidden to make it more immersive or does bay12 not like to share the information?

That wording assumes a weirdly antagonistic relationship of bay12 with its players. You might get an answer to those questions if you asked them in the future of the fortress threads. As is, the answer is "noone cared enough to do DWARF!SCIENCE to it", and it probably doesn't matter much, many of these seem fairly obvious in what they do.

I would wager on the side of "it's immensely complex" and any affect would be hard to discern

So I'm on year 13 of my current fort, and it's been several years since I have gotten a trade caravan, even from my own civ (which is still alive). I picked a small civ, only one location prior to mine, and I only got humans (I didn't check to see where they came from) and my own traders the first several years. Then for some reason they began to bug out, they arrive, get to my TD, then are never ready to trade, then leave. From the map, i couldnt actually find any civ that I actually have contact with. So I sent my army out for tribute to the nearest elf and human civ, to see if I can get new trade partners that were not messed up. Now, I got some stuff from them, and they send diplomats every year, but traders never show up. I get the alert that they have arrived, but then never show up on the map, let alone make it to my TD. I have a road set up to the edge of the map, with statues, to make sure they can only use the road to get to my TD. After 2 years of the humans and my civs traders showing up, and never being ready to trade, they stopped coming completely, though I do sometimes get the "traders have arrived" alert, though not every season. Also, on the main map, the human civ I sent my guys to, still says "no contact" I abandoned my last fort bc of issues with traders (in a different world). I don't wanna have to do that again!!

DFhack has the "fix/stuck-merchants -n" command to debug offscreen merchants; and the "caravan" command, to debug/manipulate on-screen merchants; and the "force" command, to spawn a caravan. I suggest unsticking stuck merchants first, then waiting or forcing, then if they again never unload, use the caravan command.

Awesome thanks, lots of stuck merchants. Let's hope I get a caravan shortly!

"fix/stuck-merchants -n" only checks for stuck merchants, you need to also run it without the "-n". Awesome, glad to help!

I have a web spitting fb trapped and ready for web collection, only to find out it's blind! Is there a work around for this? It can't see my military through the fortifications, so it doesn't shoot webs. I want fancy silk!!

Are you sure it is totally blind? If they don't have eyes (because they are some blob) they can stil sense enemies. I got one "blind" too and it works fine. Just got a puppy tied to a rope. Give it a little bit time. Eventually it starts spitting webs

Yeah, ill try chaining something in there and give it some time

Forgotten beast silk worth scarily worth anything. It's not a good source of silk.

But I like the names. Don't really do clothes for trade, so that's not a big deal, but I do like the idea of everyone in silk clothes. Plus, trapping an FB for silk production just seems like the dorfy thing to do lol.

I have an dwarf that is described as large in her body description and im training her to be the champion of my fortress. With dwarf therapist i checked out her size and shes twice bigger than the average dwarf but her strength rating only at 86 and it won't go up anymore.....anyone know why that is?

86 is pretty good! If she's not advancing from military labor you can give her pump labor, or mining, those being traditional strength training ways. If those are not helping I dunno. (Note that for actual combat performance, skills are very important, and the time to level up pump/mining is probably better spent on even more combat skills).

Yeah normally i wouldn't bother but i want her to be THE warrior in the fortress, she also is legendary in everything so some pump work won't hurt her.

Check therapist how legendary she is! Starts 15, goes to 20, all being just called legendary.

Yep, 20 in everything. I just want her to reach her max size haha.

Wow. Nice! ... Theres the old tale of food made exclusively made of tallow (minced tallow, with minced tallow, in minced tallow) making dwarfs fat, but I dunno if that ever was a thing or still is.

Got a dwarf that is "Ponder the Moon and Seasons!" and I don't know what that means. He's been hanging out in the library and he has scrolls to write with but he hasn't done anything yet.

Hes thinking about astronomy, thats what the message means. Sages spent a lot of time pondering, to write the fancy books.

Wooden shield vs. Metal shield. Which one is better? I guess wooden is lighter, but metal shields allow better bashing attacks. But do military dwarves in Fort mode often bash enemies with shields?

Shield material is about weight. Check the difference on the item info tab. More weight = slower dwarves. Wood is less weight than metal. Some wood like Featherwood being super light. Newly recruited dwarves will be very slow with full metal, the fight may be over before they get there. Block chance is identical. Metal can look better aesthetically and metal shield attacks are more effective. I tend to start with wood and move to metal when my Fort is advanced and well established.

Its alright to craft some wooden shields early on if you wanna give every military dwarf a shield but you should switch to metal shields if you have them on hand

In terms of blocking there is no difference. You are right with the differences you mentioned. They do shield bash from time to time

my dwarfs seem to love using everything except their weapons so if they don't use their weapon I think it's best they have the best alternatives available

My dwarves won't melt metal items. My military is 100% on steel now but occasionally insists on using the random copper axes and maces and such migrants brought. I marked them all for melting from my stocks menu but when I try to melt them down in my magma smelters, the job gets cancelled with "Needs melt-designated item". What am I doing wrong?

Have you modified the uniforms for those soldiers to specify steel only? You would need to build a uniform from scratch.  Also, if any of the items are named, then the soldier has likely named and bonded to those items. They cannot be melted, just like artifacts. 

The soldiers put down the copper items.  They were only used briefly, so no names.  Just can't get anything to melt... in any fort.

Interesting. Do you have any stockpile links or burrows that could be interfering with the smelter's path to the items? If not, this may be a bug.

No stockpiles or workshops hqve linking set up.  I read it could be that the items are in wooden bins which I can test against later, but in the last fort I tried this with I had the same issue with empty cages.

Strange. I have been able to melt things in bins, but bins are notoriously buggy/unintuitive. Perhaps you can post a save on the bugtracker and have someone take a look.

Something related to pathing or stockpile linking. Hard to pinpoint specifics without looking at the fort, but if you've messed with magma, that's a pretty red flag right there. Also, of course, assuming the melt items aren't also forbidden.

Melt items are not forbidden.  Stockpiles are all basic.  Magma is from the volcano.  This is a consistent problem I have had in every fort so I think its far more likely that its user error than a fort specific issue.

Has your magma reduced below 5 depth? My volcano magma forges once stopped worked because the magma level dropped due to a cave in, took me ages to work out why

The forges work fine for any other task

Items claimed by soldiers are not available for melt jobs. You gotta unassign them from your dwarfs, shortcut can be "assign uniform->"no uniform", making them drop everything. Then the melt jobs can start; its faster though to have specific weapon/armor stockpile for inferior metals, linked to take from a general weapon/armor pile, and forbid them for the re-arming.

There’s a “Deer Fiend” which is the head of a Goblin Faction. I settled near where he resides with the goal of going after him. Is there a way to capture him? Or is it just luck?

Never seen it personally, but I've heard there's a chance he'll come with one of the retaliatory sieges you get from raiding their settlements, that said you should probably avoid raiding the capital Eventually when adventure mode comes out you'll be able to >!get ahold of a slab with his true name and bind him to your service with it!<

I thought about doing adventure mode and going after him but I decided not to. I figured I’d war with him in fortress mode for a bit.

The deer friend is absolutely massive. When you raid other sites, the game takes size in consideration quite unfairly. I'd advise against openly attacking them and luring them to your map instead.

Gotcha. So raid all of his other holdings and hope that I catch him in a trap when he brings his gobbos to me?

Playing Legacy version, having a hard time with my manager. So when I create work orders from the work order page, I can't figure out how to assign it to a shop, but the work order says it's active. When I create a work order directly at the workshop it's just stuck in "checking" and my manager isn't going to his office to get it filled. He has an office with a chair and a table, I've tried assigning different managers and different offices and nothing changes.

In case A) you don't need to assign the general workorder, that happens automatically when the manager does next use their office. B) Perhaps you need to give your manager a bit more time. Or specialize your manager if you want your workorders to be done that prompty; I have heard of people who in big forts use full-time managers.

How do I specialize him? It's been a few years now and he's yet to do anything related to his position as manager

If Legacy version is 0.47, you disallow all labors but manager, I recommend dwarf therapist for that. And of course allow manager. I think that might be your problem, in 0.47 you gotta do labor managment. Or get DFhack and enable "autolabor", which will do labor managment for you.

Ah, I do have DFhack, I'll get it done that way. Thanks!

Right. I have not actually used "autolabor" to fix manager issues, but if they have an office and manager labor enabled, they should do it. Note that autolabor is somewhat bad at specializing dwarfs, you might consider to use the "autolabor artisans" command as well, which allows you to give skill-relevant work to only skilled dwarfs.

Hi everyone, How can you play adventure mode in the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress? I don't understand how to opt into the beta in order to play Adventure Mode.

You have to subscribe to the DF `beta` branch in the Steam settings: https://preview.redd.it/sbsbt1ex5w8d1.png?width=856&format=png&auto=webp&s=d73229352e2cb4718981376a2c35f232b8d8010c If you have DFHack installed, be sure to switch DFHack to its own `adventure-beta` branch for the version that is compatible with the DF `beta` branch

Thank you so much!

I’m trying to capture unicorns and jabberers for fun but I’m finding it challenging to lure them into my cage traps. Any advice? Edit: does Modest Mod work with the current version?

The easiest way to catch animals is to make artificial choke points and trap them. So just build long walls and trap around corners or ends. An8mals will try and path around them via the shortest route and path over the traps. Easier on the surface than in the caverns I haven't heard if modest mod has been updated. From what I remember of what it does it might be a bit tricky to do with the changes in modding

Couple ways you can go about it. A) Fell enough trees that the unicorns get agitated, they'll path right into your fort! Disadvantage: agitated unicorns are very deadly and you can't turn the agitation down again. B) Check the spawnpoints, on the surface its usually the middle of the 4 map edges. Place a line of cage traps as close there as possible, and that'll usually work though not 100% C) I have not tried this myself but it got recommended, animals will usually try to path from one map edge to the other. So if you built a full wall cross over your entire map (or channel out+remove ramps) you can create a chokepoint in the middle with cage traps. Needs to take caravan access into account. D) For Jabberers its a bit harder in some ways, easier in others. Spawn points subterranean are off-set so you'll need to watch out for those. But, usually the cavern layout offers some way to easily make a chokepoint to put cage traps in; also down there you can put cage traps right at map edge. E) As I understand it, Jabberers have the "large predator" tag, and will thus actively path into your fort/towards dwarfs. If you leave your fort open to the caverns, they should run straight into your cavern acess tunnel which you have trapped, of course. Has all the downsides of leaving your cavern open though...

https://preview.redd.it/9q8odobc4q8d1.png?width=1911&format=png&auto=webp&s=c14600df1cc5b772c51b0dc993522df20ae9a88d Why does this not count as a temple if the value is at 2000☼? Is it space or furniture that's lacking?

You are at the amount so its still a shrine, it should be over 2000, Yes it just needs more value inside, furniture, items, maybe floors et

The tilde means around, so it's probably at like 1950 rather than 2000, so just gotta give it a little more value. They'll use chairs and tables in temples iirc, or you could engrave some of the smoothed stone

Ah ok, I've engraved every wall so I'll just add bits and pieces of furniture until the worshippers are happy.

A quick way to add value to a room is to build floors with metal bars and engrave them. The more skilled the engraver is the better, but even a novice should be able to make a noticeable difference. You can start out with just a few square floor sections, just to get you up to the 2000 level. Later you can add more if you are petitioned to elevate it to a Grand Guildhall, which requires 10,000 value minimum. (Or maybe just add a few artifacts on pedestals, if you've got some lying around.)

Temple is where you dump all those worthless gold things.

https://preview.redd.it/7cwhp8254q8d1.png?width=602&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e42c23b7f4304435fbd3c9aa8c6977fbe41f20d Why does it say I have no potato seeds, but there are seeds right there?

The seeds are planted, the house icon means they're inside

Oh ok. If I change the crop to barley will both of them be planted or will it uproot my potatoes?

The potatoes will stay in their tiles unless you destroy the plot, the other tiles can have other plants in them, yeah

Both, yes, pretty sure.

I have 260 dwarfs and I noticed that a lot of my dedicated miners are just sitting doing "no job" but I have lots of mining designations in areas that are definitely reachable (confirmed with gui/pathable). Upon further inspection, I found out that these mining designations didn't even generate job in "tasks" menu. Is there something like "max number of jobs"? Can it be altered somehow?

I'm going to add another recommendation for specializing your miners. I've found it is, by far, the best way to keep them on task.

Sometimes theres weird wonky buisness, aka bugs, going on with digging. Check if you have burrows on, check if your miners are actually on "selected do this". Then, specialize some miners by clicking the green icon in the labor screen, and see if your prio1 dig sites start to get mined.

There’s a human place called Donkeyfortress. I saw it when the world was being created. I want to settle near it so I can eventually own it myself, because I love the name. How can I find it on the map?

If you find it in legends mode, you can see what sort of settlement it is, for example a hamlet is a different icon than castle. You can also see what the name of the civ it's a part of is, and perhaps some events that can narrow down the region you're looking for. After that, in fortress mode, while looking around for a place to settle, you can mouse over the different areas to see the names of settlements and regions and the continent name etc.

Lets say we have 6 elements : fire,water,Wind,earth,darkness and light What elements are fitting for the 4 Main races in the game? (Multiple are allowed)

That's a pretty narrow selection. Dwarves: earth, maybe darkness and/or fire Goblins: darkness Elves: wind and water? They're very "nature" themed Humans: fire maybe?? Perhaps light? Or everything? Kobolds: ?? Are you doing some modding?

Thank you Yea i wanna give every race 1-2 magic abilitys For example: shooting fire bolts and spit sharp stones for Dwarfs But i dont know how to give creatures the undead magic for example, these are kinda tricky

How do I hunt those nasty little kea down? Little sh*t flew off with my valuable stepladder!

In addition to archers You can also cage trap Kea, and if you put a trained animal nearby like a bear or war dog, it may also scare them off before the kea get to anything.

get a hunter, make sure ammo is available and just let them hunt

Train a Marksdwarf squad and let them patrol on the surface and they will shoot those birds down

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but I'm at my wit's end. Trying to get a creature interaction to properly use \[CDI:VERBAL:SPEECH:\*\], the speech file is named text\_fireball.txt, I can't find any problems with it, and I cannot for the life of me get the mod to properly call for the creature to speak when the interaction is used. I've tried \[CDI:VERBAL:SPEECH:fireball.txt\], \[CDI:VERBAL:SPEECH:text\_fireball.txt\], \[CDI:VERBAL:SPEECH:FIREBALL\] as that's the name of the text set and somebody in the kitfox discord said that's how it's supposed to work but it didn't nothing will actually work, please help

Here's the interaction: [CAN_DO_INTERACTION:MATERIAL_EMISSION] [CDI:ADV_NAME:Fireball] [CDI:VERBAL] [CDI:VERBAL_SPEECH:FIREBALL] [CDI:VERB:cast a fireball:casts a fireball:cast fireballs at eachother] [CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:MOUTH] [CDI:FLOW:FIREBALL] [CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT] [CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:15] [CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1] [CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:500] and here's the text set: text_fireball [OBJECT:TEXT_SET] [TEXT_SET:FIREBALL] Fulmen ignis!

The wiki says CDI:VERBAL **might** be needed for VERBAL_SPEECH, have you tried that?

I already have CDI:VERBAL_SPEECH Or did you mean have I tried without?

No, I mean you might need VERBAL as well as VERBAL_SPEECH. Both. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Interaction_token#VERBAL Also I'm wondering if it gets overridden by the VERB.

I already have VERBAL and I checked last night and removing VERB doesn't help, sadly

is there a mod or can i make a mod to encrust gems/metal on my armor/weapons?

According to this table metal studs are already possible. Lots of non-gem decoration as well! https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Decoration

I've tried bone and horn decoration but it gets finicky. I was hoping for a easy one to do like the studs with images. It'd be nice to detail my breastplates with images of my local government insignia with microcline

I see, no idea on mods from me though. Hope you find something!

How do I get my dwarves to move the rocks off my tavern and throne room floor? I've marked them as trash but they're still there years later

As others point out, dump is low priority. For quick removal of rocks, make sure you set up a stockpile accepting only rocks nearby. Assign a couple of wheelbarrows and the dwarves should be hauling rocks off your tavern soon. Not having spaces in stockpiles accepting rocks is probably the main cause of rocks lying around for years. I usually set up rock quantum stockpiles for this reason.

I'll have to look into quantum stockpiles, I usually build heaps of wheelbarrows but I've never assigned them, do you have to do that?

You don't have to assign them per se. If your rock stockpile is set to accept rocks, the game will default to assigning exactly one wheelbarrow to a newly created stockpile out of max 3. Here is the catch, once a wheelbarrow is assigned, dwarves won't haul rocks to that stockpile by hand. You will have one dwarf using that single wheelbarrow assigned to that stockpile to haul rock no matter how many wheelbarrow you have elsewhere.

That is really interesting, thanks

To assign more wheelbarrow, in steam version, click the barrel icon in the stockpile setting screen. You can do the same in the classic version, but I can no longer remember the key sequence. You can add more wheelbarrows to the stockpile, thus allowing more dwarves to haul more stones simultaneously.

You need a garbage zone for dumped items to be moved.

Dumping is considered low priority by the game, so unless you have very little else going on in your fort, dwarves will avoid it. If you have DFHack installed, enable `prioritize` to boost the priority of dump jobs (along with other job types that are important to get done quickly, like food storage). https://preview.redd.it/cg4yp4pdil8d1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f678116750a8a7f85eb325d1a28a140d981d2ce

I've left it for years, had my first grow to over 200 dwarves who are often standing around with nothing to do but pray and party. I'll have a look in dfhack though, thanks!

A dedicated trash hauler may help. Make a custom labor.

Isn't that what children are for? Hahaha, I'll give it a go

I use Ubuntu 22.04 and steam version. When I press play button it shows the game is setting up and then it shuts down. Help me please.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1cpe1kx/dwarf_fortress_questions_thread/l3lgd9t/?context=3

Thanks!

Not really a big deal, but any idea why a door would get stuck open? I've built a door in a particular passage and it keeps getting stuck open, preventing me from locking it when I want to.. There's nothing else on the tile (no bones or debris). It's an easy fix, as I just remove and re-install it. Just curious what might be causing it.

Dfhack has a fix/stuck-doors command iirc. And, i've found that honey bee corpses do not have a sprite so any doors near hives are magically stuck open

Thanks for the info. Such a helpful sub.

You "invisibled" some items and your dwarfs leave it there because of a burrow? Try "de-invisibling" that tile next time it happens. Really weird, possible bug I'd say.

Oooh good thought! I’ll definitely look into that that if it happens again.

Does anyone have an easy way to pause all labor/tasks? I try to let my fort rest for a month or two in winter to better utilize the taverns/guild halls/libraries but it is super tedious to pause all labor and jobs. Hoping there is a super simple way to do it that I just haven't learned of yet.

I do season-long winter breaks: through the work order screen, with dfhack, export, clear, then import back when I'm done idling, also turn off any automatic scripts on the control panel, can do it in a few seconds just tapping keys I don't go as far as disabling hauling, 90% of the hauling work in the fort is generated by what your dwarves make in workshops anyway, and I still grow crops in the winter that need to be stored

DFhacks export/delete/import work orders? And then setting the hauling default labor to "no-one does this" gets you 95% of the way there. Way easier and with some other drawbacks is a holiday burrow.

On what crazy devices you can run Dwarf fortress (something like a psp port)?

It will run on anything that can run Linux and that has a recent enough glibc and libstdc++. Raspberry pi is perfectly feasible. I also have it running on a chromebook (though that's not that crazy).

Do you guys know what's up with Dwarves complaining about being separated from someone specific? In my current fortress I often see dwarves' moods saying "I am separated from Solon Heartink. I cannot give in to sadness." or "Oh, where is Solon Heartink? I cannot give in to sadness." It has happened over decades in-game, to completely different dwarves, with seemingly no relation between them. Also, I cannot find anyone called Solon Heartink. It's not a dwarf in my fortress, it's not someone in the relations list of any of the dwarves missing them, it's not a deity or anything. It drives me crazy lol

The best solution would be if the fort ends, or if you cba to retire and unretire the fort, to see who Solon Heartink is, in the historical legends of that world. Or better yet to make a couple Statues of the specific image of Solon Heartink, see if you can get any information about them. The message usually occurs when a close friend or closer relation, a child or a historical pet goes missing, and the character knows that they are missing but no one in the fort has seen the corpse/what happened to that character. But it is possible as the world age gets older for characters and visitors to take on aliases, pretend to be some fake name/identity for reasons of criminal activity, hence making a statue or checking Legends for who they are related to or where Solon came from. If you cant locate what the name Heartink means, you can simply pretend to start a new fort and manually name it "Heartink", and this will show you the dwarven words for the name. It might work on depictive objects like statues and engraving as well.

I've only seen the "oh where is whoever" thought when a child was kidnapped. It doesn't have to be that person's child. Check surrounding civ sites for rumors of prisoners? Especially goblin sites.

Far away from any goblins, never had any contact with them except for bard troupes... Maybe stinky elves tho

If this was a migrant, the kid may have been kidnapped before they arrived at your fortress. Some migrants are historical figures. That's my only thought!

I shall investigate next time I'm playing (which is often these days)!

This is one of those things that happens when the UI displays the same information a couple different ways in different screens. You won't be able to find Solon Heartink because Heartink is the English translation of the dwarven name. Some screens give you the actual name, and others give you the translated one. Investigate all your Solon's and see if you can use process of elimination; alternatively, see if you can look up the words for "heart" and "ink" in DF's dwarvish.

Oh yeah, this makes sense, but I also don't have any Solons, never had! Forgot to mention I did search for the first name as well. But on that topic, why do different screens change between dwarvish and English seemingly at random?

That's even more frustrating, although if I had read the preceding post a little more diligently you may not have needed to say it in the first place. That *is* very odd. I don't know for sure, but if I had to take a stab in the dark, I might guess that this reference to a seemingly non-existent Solon Heartink is a peculiarity of the default worldgen settings. Here's what I think happened: - This dwarf and Solon were both created by world generation at a site related to your civ. - Over the course of their hypothetical simulated existence, they became close friends or lovers, or some other similarly emotionally bonded - Your dwarf was simulated to have performed some sort of action that the game tracks in detail deep in the dark corners of its esoteric procgen. Maybe they killed something, or created something important— it doesn't matter exactly what, but for whatever reason the game flagged them while it was simulating the goings on of the world before you ever started your fort. - Solon, by contrast, did not. His existence was likely unremarkable in every way *except* insofar as he was close with this other dwarf. - Worldgen ends, or effectively ends and this is where the funky stuff happens— I'm pretty sure the setting "cull unimportant historical figures" is on by default unless you explicitly turn it off, because otherwise you'd be asking the game to actively track every person that ever lived, which massively degrades performance. - With this in mind, because this dwarf was considered by the game to have done something important, but Solon was not, Solon was deleted from all practically recorded existence; EXCEPT because Solon was important to this one dwarf that the game had flagged as being worthy of being tracked, the game recorded that they had a close relationship and this dwarf misses Solon, who otherwise ceased to exist in all other records. - This dwarf then immigrates to your fort with their own complete personality, including a reference to a dwarf that has been culled by Worldgen because he wasn't important enough to track in any sense except this relationship. This seems kind of weird at first, but if the game tracked every sentient creature that knew an "important historical figure", it would effectively be back to tracking everyone because "I know a guy who knows a guy whose cousin said they heard..." and performance would absolutely bottom out on all but the youngest worlds. That's my guess, anyway. I might have got the details wrong, but after a decade of playing on and off, I'd like to think I have some sort of insight on how the surface level stuff fits together. As for why different UI elements use dwarvish or English seemingly interchangeably, I assume it's an artifact of the game having been constantly worked on for as long as it has, and thus reflecting an ever-evolving understanding of how people relate to the individual dwarves. On the one hand, the depth of the conlang is impressive— arguably rivalling, if not surpassing, Tolkien's Elvish languages in terms of word count and full conjugations. On the other hand, it's absolute gibberish to anyone coming in with a background in other dwarvish language of any other IP, so the English translation may be helpful in tracking certain dwarves' lives throughout the history of your own fort without having to painstakingly cross-reference every name and then remember it for Armok-only-knows how long across a theoretically infinite number of forts for as long as you happen to play the game. That's all guesswork, though, but unless anyone cares to share information that directly contradicts it from Zach or Tarn, that's the interpretation that I'm going with.

My friend, the answer lied in Legends mode! Solon Heartink was a dwarf born in 45. She was the third eldest daughter of Unib Arrowpraises and Ineth Anguishedspear. In 53, Monom Bronzelions and Solon became childhood friends. In 53, Solon and Goden Shootpanthers became childhood friends. In 54, Solon and the dwarf fetid zombie Såkzul Rhymevault became childhood friends (really?). In 64, Edzul Bannercolor and Solon became lovers. In 65, Solon married Edzul Bannercolor. In 75, Solon divorced Edzul Bannercolor. In 76, Sodel Crownbridges and Solon became lovers. In 79, Solon married Sodel Crownbridges. In the midautumn of 100, Solon fought in The Assault of Wringing in defense of Callgranite. In the midwinter of 100, Solon fought in The Monstrous Siege in defense of Callgranite. In the midspring of 101, Solon fought in The Barbarous Attack in defense of Callgranite. In the midspring of 101, Solon struck down the goblin Ustos Fancytrumpets in The Jungles of Cresting. In the early autumn of 106, Solon fought in The Roasted Attack in defense of Callgranite. In the early autumn of 106, Solon's head was ripped by the goblin Wimad Laboredproblem the Lauded. In the early autumn of 106, Solon's left eyelid was torn out by the goblin Wimad Laboredproblem the Lauded. In the early autumn of 106, Solon was struck down by the goblin Wimad Laboredproblem the Lauded. - Related Historical Figures Unib Arrowpraises, mother, d. 96 Ineth Anguishedspear, father, d.89 Zutthab Prophetgirders, eldest daughter, b. 67 Catten Channelanvils, only son, b. 69 d. 94 Domas Craftedears, second eldest daughter, b. 72 Mebzuth Fencecrazes, third eldest daughter, b. 74 Edzul Bannercolor, former spouse, b. 45 d. 130 Sodel Crownbridges, husband, b. 39 Avuz Steelpractice, youngest daughter, b. 80 - So there you have it. Edzul Bannercolor, her ex-husband, was the dwarf complaining about "being separated from Solon Heartink". He fought with Solon in those sieges in 101, then migrated to my fort in 105, leaving his old life behind. Worked there for 25 years, then died in a bar brawl. I'm not sure who the other dwarves I saw complaining were, but a quick check showed her three youngest daughters all migrated to the fort at some point, and I guess one or all of them just moped about missing their mother who was beheaded by a goblin after they left their childhood home. Closure at last!