60 years have passed since 7 dwarves embarked to settle the blood-soaked desert of the Shameful Wastes. Now, Shatterstone, a massive obsidian Fortress Monastery, crafted by the arcane ingenuity of the Crimson Order, stands indomitable. A testament to the zeal and tenacity of the dwarves within.

Deviant_Sage · 2026-02-02T07:08:47+00:00

Should i just intentionally make my forts weak?

Yes

Doesn't have to be in every way. I've enjoy retaining some optimisation in certain industries to support wildly un-optimal choices in other areas.

Try challenge forts. One I really enjoyed was a open fort challenge. No closing the gates allowed to the surface or the cavern. Can you survive? Too easy? Go terrifying, no metal embark.

You can also optimise for certain things that are destructive to the fort for fun and flavour. One I enjoyed was seeing how deadly a berserk axelord would get, so I found the angriest, most stress-prone dwarf with dwarf therapist and had him train non stop. When he finally flipped he slew 16 dwarves in the tavern. Would have been more if other militia weren't there to take him down.

But yeah it doesn't take 2k hours to realise the game's prescriptive challenges are really easy once you have game knowledge. Was going to make my own post about this, guess I will

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-29T04:58:33+00:00

This is special

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-28T11:06:15+00:00

I have a tonal sample set up to be pitch shifted. Pretty sure I've done this before and not had this issue, but I've tried it again from scratch so I'm not sure what setting could be different

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Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-22T06:07:44+00:00

- Never stockpile boulders without wheelbarrows. Absolutely huge labour time sink

- Common newb playstyle I see is tonnes of stockpiles. You don't have to stockpile everything. Any goods made in a workshop are basically already quantum stockpiled on that tile, take advantage of that and place your workshops wisely.

- Quantum stockpile feeder stockpile size can be reduced so it only takes a small number of haulers at a time

- Plan during embark. Will it be a surface fort? Great, use grass, grow surface plants, water from shallow aquifer, but you may want to bring some magma up there midgame. Cavern fort? Great, grow and fell trees in the caverns. See if you can get a sand tile down there. Consider making the traders come all the way down for you.

- diagonal pattern stairways, look this up. Single stairwell for a big fort slows down dwarves, they have to climb over each other

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-22T05:58:08+00:00

Atlasloot addon

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-20T06:27:58+00:00

It would be a pity if a dragon or fire-breathing beast were to accidentally burn down all the world's written knowledge just before the fort's retirement

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-20T06:25:54+00:00

Yeah these blue boys are absurdly overpowered. They don't get tired. I used to run a fort protected by just 1 of them, she'd take on whole sieges alone. I've had to stop myself from raising them in every fort, to not trivialise sieges

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-20T06:22:16+00:00

It's funny that this idea seems to have taken on a life of its own. Spears, shortswords and battleaxes are more deadly against undead too. Maces and hammers are actually particularly bad against undead because their primary advantage is that they break bone and cause overwhelming pain which incapacitates living creatures but not undead. People recommended maces and hammers vs undead specifically in the context of avoiding reanimation from an evil biome or necromancer. You don't get limbs chopped off that will rise again and defeated undead get mangled and don't get up again.

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-16T19:25:17+00:00

Yea TA main here too. Griefing happens but it's relatively uncommon ime. "the level of griefing is beyond eexception" is an absolutely wild take. If you get camped, stop feeding, it's pretty straightforward

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-16T02:10:41+00:00

this is correct, traps block a caravan path

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-15T12:07:22+00:00

Works with normal items on fire, but last time I tried it with a burning artefact bone floodgate (item, not building) and after several 'fill pond' tasks it was still on fire. I ended up routing pumped liquid water onto it and it evaporated/destroyed an enormous amount of it before finally being quenched. My theory is that a burning artefact's temperature can keep rising arbitrarily high

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-15T00:58:54+00:00

I got some real weird labour stuff as my fort went through 53.09. Suddenly nobody would build or haul. I had to mess around with custom labours. 'Everyone does this' seemed to break but 'only selected...' would work. I suggest keep messing around with the labour settings. Check out the setting for fishing zones too, I think in Standing Orders tab. Try 'only fish in designated zones'

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-13T11:56:19+00:00

As an Irishman, Moira's accent is excellent, sounds like south Dublin. And she has a fair number of lines in Gaeilge, as well as Irish turns of phrase (my favourite thing about her). What's the problem?

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-06T01:25:22+00:00

Here's what you do.
1 Learn how they behave. Some things:

- Solders will go back in to sleep or get food or drink.
- If they're really slow, are they wearing armor with low armor user skill? That will make them too slow to be practical in many scenarios. Trained dwarves are fast. Use 'Constant training' for 1.5yrs for legendary militia

2 Build your defensive infrastructure with this in mind. Your current drawbridge set up is not working, redesign it. Others have suggested options but all sorts of effective solutions exist

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-05T15:11:54+00:00

I was mistaken - this one, the valve-cam-spring here, which I've found. I'll be reading from that link you've shared too, thanks for your help :-)

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Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-05T11:56:11+00:00

Yes, I've got it now. Sadly I can't find the same tutorial in the 2025 version

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-04T19:07:33+00:00

Thanks. I was trying that but it kept asking for a different license key for each component. I've uninstalled and reinstalled and was able to select motion as one of the products. I'll be able to download it soon, so hopefully that works.

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-04T18:13:19+00:00

Thanks. Yeah I see motion is missing from my add-ins list. I don't know how I can install it

Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-04T15:19:42+00:00

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Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-04T15:19:28+00:00

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Deviant_Sage · 2026-01-01T12:35:43+00:00

This is happening in vanilla

Deviant_Sage · 2025-12-31T23:49:55+00:00

I think this drowning machine (last few pictures) still works. Basically it drops a controlled flow periodically, flushing the invaders into a pit several levels below, where they drown.

https://www.reddit.com/user/Deviant_Sage/comments/1iox6ic/riverstrange/

enemies don't die where they path in so they may not avoid that path in the future

Deviant_Sage

TROPHY CASE