Keeping Your Fortress Happy - Dwarf Fortress Tips

[@FurtherReadingTV]

Fun fact: the three people in that 2nd lowest level are Psanick, another Dwarf in a constant state of internal rage and a baby who was brought into battle shortly after being born and only has thoughts about seeing elves die. Also, another tip for the late game is make a ton of craftdwarf workshops and have some monthly tasks to create a ton of crafts. This can help bored dwarves do some busy work which can help with getting happy memories for levelling up, seeing nice things, ect. Also getting a soap and clothing industry up can help make sure your dwarves avoid bad thoughts from crap clothes and get good thoughts from bubble baths. You can see videos on these aspects below: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIbSk2alebNpeJo kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYmtmZqamM-laJI

[@concretel10n]

Is dwelling on being caught in the rain once over 10 years ago.

[@NTJedi]

Exactly the same problem I have in my fort... one female dwarf caught in the rain once yet every day she goes to the fortress boss to cry about it.

[@thevazquezevil6538]

⁠@@NTJedi I just station them inside the atom smasher. It’s easier to train new dorfs 😂

[@vincer7824]

I think of it as more a symbolic thing. Getting caught in the rain can make it seem as if the world is against you on a primal level. Your hopes and dreams seem that much more out of reach in that moment. So it is with dwarves.

[@AntonSlavik]

I love finding Irish content creators. Thanks for the tips! I'm being driven crazy by dwarfs becoming miserable and I've been focusing a lot on trying to get them to pick up items they like. I think I'll give them better quarters and make the tavern bigger, and see how I get on.

[@chillerwhale1655]

One thing I do to boost happiness in relation to the “nice things” portion is designating statue gardens to give the extra good thought for things being tastefully arranged. Then I just spam masterwork everything in those areas. Masterwork cages, cabinets, coffins, weapon traps, literally everything.

[@clint4527]

And sell your crappy bins, barrels, and goblets once in a while, it will allow you to replace it with better quality little weight items and generating more happy thoughts.

[@Tekkud]

Yo! We talked on my stream about the way locations and zones interact. I was a little confused about the situation but I see now what you meant by a tavern and barracks. My experiments suggest that the dwarves are switching between training and socializing rather often, using either the barracks or tavern depending on the task. So it's not strictly necessary to have them combined, but clearly there is a benefit of having them overlap: no travel time between activities.

[@FurtherReadingTV]

Yeah that was a really helpful conversation! It really helped me shore up my ideal tavern designs! I also learnt a lot about the structural integrity of trees!

[@frankg5534]

I thought they also need to be close to each other to even talk with each other. Maybe having the barracks in the tavern allows talking to other people than the squad members? Do two dwarfs need to socialize to count as having been talking to each other?

[@FurtherReadingTV]

They have to be both close to each other and in the same zone. So if I had a barracks and next to that a meeting area they won't interact even if right next to each other. Only one needs to socialise - I have a clip on my twitch where a training dwarf literally gets the socialise happy thought when the guy next to him finishes his socialise action.

[@mnbgt101]

I love that this game is so complex that one of your dwarves developed borderline personality disorder without the devs ever explicitly adding it

[@Paulsinke]

thanks, i always wondered about not being able to pray. great video!

[@Slanderbot]

I love this video about memories and tots!

[@u0000-u2x]

7:00 this is hilarious and one great example of how deep this game goes!

[@willchase1952]

I have become addicted to waterfall locations and build my main stairs right behind them with Fortifications for this very reason. The downside is that waterfall locations are so far from the caverns and magma sea...

[@FurtherReadingTV]

One way to help with this is to mine out a passage beneath the waterfall so you can redirect it deeper into the ground, like what I did with my river. If you check out my magma breaching video you can do the same trick to safely create a hole under any body of liquid and drain it to wherever you need.

[@WolfricThorsson]

About your staircase waterfall... I was inspired by this to try building one of my own, but it's not quite working out. I'm still relatively new to the game and this is my first time experimenting with water at all, but from what I can see, it SHOULD be working. The basic setup looks very similar to what you've got here - water comes from the river to a cistern and then drops about 8 levels around the staircase, with a large drain leading off the map on the bottom layer. The issue is that it doesn't seem to be draining quickly enough, and within seconds of the water hitting the drain layer, it backs up the waterfall to the next layer and begins to fill. Left unchecked, it WILL flood the entire fortress, and I can't figure out what I've done wrong.

[@FurtherReadingTV]

It might be you have a much bigger river than mine. Try increasing the size of the bottom layer, don't be afraid to make it huge. Consider even making it two stories if it seems to keep backing up. Note that a little flooding at the start can be common but usually once the bottom layer hits the fortifications it should start to calm down a little.

[@WolfricThorsson]

@FurtherReadingTV thank you! I backtracked to an earlier save and am redesigning it as we speak - fingers crossed! 😂

[@karnewarrior]

Don't forget that falling water can also spread out a bit. IME using grates only directly beneath where the waterfall is can result in some spillage. It's not a big deal, it just gets a bit muddy, but it can be annoying.

[@InternetStudiesGuy]

I thought the mood of my dorfs looks a bit bad, even though they had excellent food, excellent drink and lots of leisure activities. So I built a mist generator. Took me a bit to get it right of course, but eventually it worked, generating the waterfall impression on dorfs. However it did not appear to improve the overall mood and then a tantrum spiral happened with 20 dead, 70 wounded. Must have been the mist generator malfunctioning.

[@FurtherReadingTV]

Yeah, I find in Dwarf Fortress prevention is the big thing - it's extremely hard if not impossible to fix sad dwarves so you wanna try to keep their happiness high all the time. A big issue is when dwarves get mental illnesses or persistent issues from trauma, at which point you're better off exiling them before they have a tantrum that gives more dwarves trauma!

[@marcogypaetus9607]

Sanic became unhappy cause he couldn't go fast :(

[@peterhealy7272]

We love Walter!!

[@marcusaurelius4051]

useful video thank you thank you

[@beranmuden6155]

Thanks! Love your videos and your voice, keep it up!

[@abbygaleforcewind]

If you think about it this is all good advice for human self-care too😊

[@adlhbgreqk]

What happends with the water from waterfall after it hits the grate on the tawern level?

[@deadstones1]

it probably just continues down to a hole in the edge of the map or to an aquifer, somewhere that will drain the water.

[@FurtherReadingTV]

Quite a lot! I have it go to a few other parts of the area to create wells, some water power areas and reservoirs for casting obsidian. Then at the very end I carves some fortifications into the side of the map to allow it to drain off the map.

[@BelugaSennah]

The melon has it's own name?!

[@FurtherReadingTV]

Yup, his name is Walter Melon.

[@SuperHellasvr]

Bring waterfall, booze, violence and dwarfussy and they will be happy

[@u0000-u2x]

5:15 looks like the UI needs some work... it does give you the wrong impression. The not being able to pray being irrelevant is surprising because they complain about it so much... so much useless time spent building temples and churches :D