Dwarf Fortress Q&A

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I know a few Giantitpers play good old DF. I myself am a moderate noob, but I will do my best to answer any questions. I know a few things. I have a question which i would be grateful for an answer...

so I was sick of all these Horses wandering around my fort, decided to put them to use. i went into the objects file and added [TRAINABLE] to their properties, like there are for dogs. Does anyone know if this works or not?

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i figured it out. it does work, with out breaking the game. but i accidnetally added it to mules... so i have a stray war mule now :smallamused:

[Grey, Darling]

stray war deer are better. let the goblin tremble of the thought of being chased by a deer.

the one creature that would do most with [TRAINABLE] tag is carp, should you ever capture one. those things are more aggressive and leathal than mutated sea bass with frickin laser beams attached to their heads.

[Driderman]

Best way to increase animal population?

I've heard several people complain how there's horses and such all over the place. Personally, I've never had more than 4 animals of the same race at any point, even though I have a breeder pair locked up in a cage.
Ang suggestions how to make them breed faster? It's hard to get a decent-sized pack of wardogs when you only get a puppy every 4. year or so

[Grey, Darling]

Lock the entire population into one cage. Give it a generation or two and you'll have enough. Also, import animals if you want the population to grow faster.

[Jothki]

Breeding happens at a distance.

[Khosan]

Best way to increase animal population?

I've heard several people complain how there's horses and such all over the place. Personally, I've never had more than 4 animals of the same race at any point, even though I have a breeder pair locked up in a cage.
Ang suggestions how to make them breed faster? It's hard to get a decent-sized pack of wardogs when you only get a puppy every 4. year or so

If you bring 4+ dogs, you'll soon have enough puppies.

Do not bring more than five. You will regret it. You will be drowning in puppies by the second year.

I've had to start eating puppies in order to keep the little gits under control.

[Captain van der Decken]

Throw them all in a small hole, or something, so you don't have them running about the place.

[Driderman]

You can just put them in cage, yeah. I suppose I must just have been unlucky the times I've tried to breed a massive population of dogs

[Telok]

Do a vet check. If the random number generator gave you one or no females it could explain the shortage of puppies.

You remember the moats of lava or steam defenses people used to make a few versions ago? Try one with dogs. Start with some puppies in a cage, put them in a pit, link up a lever to the cage. Put a retractable bridge over the pit and link a couple of levers to it.

With some marksmen and a few dwarves lever spamming the bridge you ought to be able to lure in and deal with most invading forces.

Personally I tended to use dogs as hunting and military assistants. All hunters got a couple dogs assigned to them and any dedicated military dwarves got the rest. About once a year I went through the animal lists to make sure all the dogs were assigned. The lethality of hunting and military work usually kept the dog population in check for me.

[Driderman]

As far as I remember, animal genders are assigned such that you get one male, then one female, then one male, then one female, and so on...
In any case, I checked the gender of the animals and it was a pair of males and a pair of females, all four in the same cage

[Captain van der Decken]

I vaguely recall a bug with breeding due to putting animals in cages. That may have been fixed though.

[Rockphed]

I have a question, well 3.

What is the best way to get food production going? Also, how do you refine Coal? And how do you train dogs?

I managed to get a fortress up to a villiage, but these three problems still plague me. My people keep starving, and I have ~20 dogs, though I kill those off every so often for food. Hmmm, new question: How do you get your cows milkable?

[endoperez]

What is the best way to get food production going?

Also, how do you refine Coal?

And how do you train dogs?

How do you get your cows milkable?

1) Fishing is good early on. Farming is more efficient, and farms won't freeze over. 'b'uild farm 'p'lots underground on sand, clay or similar "fertile" ground, then choose what you want to grow. Plump Helmets are good. DON'T cook plump helmets, OR their spawn, until you have lots of both, because eating a raw Plump Helmets will give you a spawn.

2) Sometimes you can find coal in the mountain. If you don't, you have to burn it from wood. Build a smelter (wood furnace, I think) to process one of these into forge-worthy combustibles.

3) Build a kennel.

4) Due to problems in the game engine, you can't milk cows. At the moment, dwarves have to be able to carry whatever it is that they want to milk. If you get purring maggots, you can milk those.

[Rockphed]

2) Sometimes you can find coal in the mountain. If you don't, you have to burn it from wood. Build a smelter (wood furnace, I think) to process one of these into forge-worthy combustibles.

I have huge stockpiles of Bituminous Coal and lignite, do those count?

[Captain van der Decken]

You have to process those, too. They make coke at a smelter.