New Dwarf Fortress

[Skanky Burns]

Okies, figured out the problem. Your workshop actually blocks the door. When you are building the workshop, the dark green X's are solid parts of the workshop, the lighter green X's are walkable areas. With that particular workshop, you lucked out as a door in the middle or on the right would let him escape (and do stuff like collect items to make things with). So... move the door to the middle or the right.

Some other observations: The farms aren't set to have seeds planted on them. Use 'q' to look at the farms, then select what to plant each season for that year. This needs to be done for each farm you have built, and I think re-done each year.

The trade depot is inaccessible by human caravans. They are width 3x3 (like most workshops, but mobile) so will not be able to get to the depot. Its not strictly necessary to cater to them, but they will have less stuff to trade to you with just mules rather than caravans too.

Finally, a stockpile for furniture wouldn't go astray. That is why your carpenter's workshop is cluttered.

All in all, a solid location and a respectable fortress as well.

[LotC]

Thanks for the tips and the thumbs up! I'm glad it's something as simple as moving a door. I did plant seeds in the spring but I suppose I have to 'q' them again. So should I have built my depot outside then? That's the only way I could see catering to caravans, since I want a single tile entrance for a door at my entrance.

Now maybe I can crank out some crafts in time for the traders to arrive. Again, thanks for the help.

[Proteus_MST]

Yes, you have to determine which seeeds to plant for every season.
Which is only natural as fter all there are plants/mushrooms that don´t grow every season (for example quarry bushes).
If you don´t fertilize the fields it could also be useful to let them lay fallow for a soeson or so.
My design for example has 7*7 rooms which contain 4 3*3 farm plots.
Every season only 2 of them get planted while the other 2 lie fallow.

|ppp ppp
|ppp ppp
|ppp ppp
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|ppp ppp
|ppp ppp
|ppp ppp

As for the trading post:
Yep, normally the best location is somewhere outside near the entrance,
where it can be reached well by your haulers that carry the items to/from your stockpiles.

Just check the accessability with Shift + d
If it says "Depot inaccessible" you know that something has to be done (just check the green tiles, they have to form a path to the maps border; where they end (before reaching the border) and only red tiles remain you have to do something, for example smoothe stones or fell trees, so that at least a 3 tiles wide passage remains [you don´t have to have green tiles to every border of the map however, normally one side is sufficient] ])

[Skanky Burns]

You can set the farms for up to four seasons at a time.

With regards to the depot, you could open up a 3-tile hole to the outside and have a single-width entrance into the fortress main from there. Really though, I just leave mine outside.

Speaking of trade goods, apparently rock mechanisms are great to sell. You would likely need a large stockpile as they can't be stacked, but good quality ones go for 200 each. So I have heard, anyway. I've been building rock mugs for sale.

[N35t0r]

The problem with mechanisms is they are heavier than crafts (but still lighter than 'furniture') so you might end up not buying all you want due to weight restraints on the caravans (not so much the humans if they bring wagons along)

But especially for the first year, until you have spare dwarves to use for crafts, mechanisms can be quite usful since you should always have some around for traps and brawbridges and the like.

[Skanky Burns]

I was testing yesterday and mechanisms from low-skill dwarves are really not worth their weight. Maybe if you start out with some mechanic skill it is worth it from the start, but for trading initially I would still go with crafts.

[Proteus_MST]

That´s why among other things I always choose to have one of my 7 dwarves with stone crafting at level 4 or 5, this guarantees that he is able to make beautiful goods that go for around 20-50 coins (and, as skill level also influences the speed with which he is doing his work, he is able to amass lots of beautiful stone goods in short time).
Sometimes I also choose to give another of my 7 dwarves an equivalent skill level in bone carving, after all normally bones are also abundant in my initial fortress (even if products from bones/shells are sadly not bought by elves).

I´m testing btw. a new design for my workshops:
Usually I made 7*7 rooms like the design for my farms, that housed 4 workshops.
But now I have slightly altered it (but still use the same room size);

www,www
www,www
www,www
,,,,,,,
sssssss
sssssss
sssssss

w = workshops and s = storage area

The storage area houses raw materials used for the workshops so that my craftsdwarves don´t have to walk all the way to the next storage area but can, with only 2 steps get their next raw material.

Especially n the later stages of my fortreses there are always enough dwarves with no jobs, that can do the hauling tasks, so I think the productivity can only gain from it (only drawback is the greater amount of room needed for each workshop, but I think that will be O.K.

btw.
when I received my first dwarven Caravan in my new outpost this year I saw a strange occurence:
The outpost liaison (who had to walk outside to meet my leader, who was fishing) hunted down and killed a mountain goat

[N35t0r]

be advised: in the old version, any contiguous block of 7x7 mined out area collapsed, so if Toady ever puts that in again, you might want to install supports before upgrading.

I generally use 13x13 rooms (with an unmined tile in the center) as stockpiles, and place workshops on adjacent rooms, with small output stockpiles on the other side.

[Proteus_MST]

Good to know.
Well, looks like it won´t be a problem,
as there is place for a support in the midst
wihtout causing traffic problems.

More problems will be caused my dining halls,
which I like very big

[Proteus_MST]

O my god,
another new version of DF.
But obviously not many changes compared to 33b,
just fixes for some annoyances (which I never encountered to date)