1:58 create front doors to protect fortress 2:42 create gather fruit zone 4:05 create process plants job to create pigtail seeds 4:48 create pigtail stockpile next to farm plot 6:45 specialize one dwarf to hauling and mining only 8:48 limit access to tavern and altar to citizens only 9:10 create cloth stockpile 9:50 trader arrived 10:25 move cut gems to trade depot 11:05 disable children doing certain chores to keep them mentally sane 12:15 request broker to trade depot 12:50 request iron anvil and other items for next year's caravan 14:45 trade cut gems for metal bar, ropes, instrument, toy, empty bags, bin of leather with caravan 16:50 traded items are used to satisfy needs if a dwarf starts a strange mood 17:15 check on upset child dwarf 17:45 create toy stockpile on tavern 18:45 create doors to tavern 19:00 create loom and clothing workshop 20:20 create cloth bags 21:05 create bedrooms with diagonal doors 21:15 smooth walls of tavern 22:00 create beds 22:28 create process plants job (pigtails) 22:45 create work orders for coffers and cabinets 24:20 married dwarfs share beds 24:30 create second stone worker workshop 25:05 create bedroom zones in multi mode 25:30 create work order for rock doors 26:20 check cloth supplies 27:15 starting water supply, deal with the aquifer 35:10 use garbage dump to quickly remove boulders from well 36:04 create mechanics workshop 36:40 create rock mechanisms for a well 38:16 create well 40:10 recap and next episode preview
@blind: You would do well to pin these comments in cases you don't create sections in the video's timeline yourself. Would help all parties involved, including you.
After watching Nookriums tutorial vids this is the BEST second tutorial for Dwarf Fortress. Before people get offended here's why: I am a complete noob who hasn't played RimWorld but loved Banished, Towns and other similar games. I have the time to watch 6hrs of tutorials (yay Xmas!) Nookriums covers basic mechanics, where to click and how to set up things in his own way. It is an actual mechanical tutorial that allows you to mess up on your own and make your own decisions while failing and then going out and finding what you have missed and try again. Blind however helps you know how to deal with the situations you are in. Manager optimisation, trading, cloth, gems etc. This gives me an insight in how to optimize how he does things and I can choose to go his way or not. Keep up the good work Blind, I appreciate this and will be binging your vids for days to come as I get to grips with the game.
These longform let's play tutorial videos you're doing are my preferred format. I like the quick tutorials as well, but these longer videos let you explain in more detail, which is usually what I'm looking for in a tutorial.
I second this. I’ve found tons of tutorials for dwarf fortress since I’ve begun playing (steam release) but most don’t go very in-depth on HOW/WHY things are done. Very much appreciate the very step-wise content Blind has put out here.
@@freaktopianexile2083 Yes, yes it is! I've told my wife the amazing stories I experienced in the game, but she was deeply disappointed when she saw the default game (ASCII). But some of my most memorable moments were when I had a vampire problem and a forgotten beast with deadly dust. I send in the vampire suspects, they managed to kill the beast only to die moments later. Both problems were solved ;-)
@@annekekramer3835 I only got to know about the game via the steam discovery queue, I've watched a couple of videos with the old interface, and although I decided to wait for the steam version, because it's easier on the eyes, I think after a while your brain starts to "translate" the ASCII into creative images... I started gaming on a TRS-80, and I definitely remember the stuff we played back then completely different than the screenshots I've seen in recent times ;-) It has a steep learning curve, and I like that - currently I'm trying to figure out how the herd of elephants got into the room... ;-)
Had to drop in a comment to praise you for how great these videos are. Looooooooong time DF player here and up until now I found Capt'n Duck's tutorials to be the best. You have not only taken the crown, but smashed the throne, let the Forgotten Beasts out of their cages and channeled out a magma vein on your way out, leaving the fortress in a tantrum spiral. Well done, sir.
Yeah, didn't make much sense. There wasn't an explanation for why certain levels and areas were dug and then replaced with walls, like what are the mechanics in play or the reason for doing these things?
Took me a few hours as well to grasp the concept as well (har har). Let's see if I can simplify his long-winded explanation a bit... He is building the well over 3 layers - the lowest point (where all the building is) will be the bottom, the next level up will be where the actual well is built, and the final is an artificial "roof" that you make. You need this "roof" in place, because any tiles marked as water will seep water once they are mined. So, you're basically going up above where you'd like your well to be, making channels to 'open' up the roof above your well, and then building walls over them, effectively stopping them from seeping water from above to the lower tiles. Next you will again mine out the surrounding aquiferous tiles surrounding where your well will be located, and replace them with walls, as this will stop them from seeping water from the sides. Hopefully this helps! I may also be totally wrong about what he's trying to say LOL, but I tried!
Yeah I feel like an entire episode could be used to slowly explain every aspect of using the aquifer. I was confused as to why the aquifer leaked into the well, but not into the wood stockpile on the other side. I wasn't sure why he did certain things and why the game behaves it does. He's great at explaining most aspects of the game. It's definitely just aquifers being complex to use (he even said what he was doing was tricky, and while I vaguely understood parts of it, on the whole it's not super clear). I think this part would benefit from a more scripted tutorial rather than as part of the let's play.
@@BrickInTheHead @BrickInTheHead "why the aquifer leaked into the well, but not into the wood stockpile on the other side" It's confusing indeed, I guess not all damp walls are equal, some are more "wet" and drippy than others. From my experience not all of them drip to adjacent tiles. As you can see in the video in 34:55, he had to dig through the damp walls to speed up the flooding to forcefully increase the water level.
Brilliant work, these videos combined with the premium update have made this game suddenly approachable to players like me who have been trying to get into it for months or (in my case) years. You're the perfect mix of clear, concise and entertaining. Please keep it up man!
Thank you for making such a great explanatory videos! But I didn't get the well/aquifer part at all :( I see that this is something most newbies struggle with, maybe it needs a separate video with more detailed explanation step by step... would be cool.
So, I took sometime to understand, until today my fortress began to flood everywhere, lol. So, here is the thing: the aquifier is on the 3 levels that he worked on. The idea is: I will flood the first level and construct the well in the second (above the first). But when you dig into the 2nd level, you are allowing the floor from the 3rd level to spill water. So, that's the key to understand it. If you just dig the 2nd floor and build walls around it, you would still have water coming from the ceiling. So, he went to the 3rd level and channeled the area (important: it must cover all "opened" tiles below). That way, he has removed the floor from the 3rd level (that is the ceiling from 2nd level!). Then, he replaced the floor with walls. That way, he stopped water coming from the ceiling. Then, he went back to the 2nd level and dug around to remove the 2nd floor walls spill (since the water comes from the ceiling and the walls). That way, he managed to stop the water coming from the walls (in the 2nd level) and the ceiling (actually, from the 3rd level). I hope it helps!
Another side note: when you dig below into an aquifier using stairs you are ALREADY removing the ceiling! That's why you will only need to build walls around it to stop the spilling. If you go one level below an isolated aquifier (example, 3x3 stairs) and opens a 5x5 area (just one corridor around the stairs), even if you isolate this below level with walls, you will see water spilling - it's coming from the ceiling!
That half-circle back hallway just behind the tavern is aesthetically pleasing. It also makes me glad Tarn hasn't programmed in noise complaints cuz I can't imagine having a tavern on the other side of your bedroom wall.
So, at first the aquifer well technique was confusing, but as soon as i started to pay attention to which level you were on (under mini map), it all made perfect sense 👍 really enjoy your tutorials and streams, thank you!
31:21 This is not a bug and precisely how it works. A smooth stone wall will prevent the aquifer from leaking. Where the confusion comes from is that when people try to mine into the middle of an aquifer and do not realize that the ceiling tile above will drop down.
The aquifer portion of the video... man this is confusing. I'm not grasping how you're figuring out where the aquifer is or why channeling is required. As a new player there isn't much explanation about what the dripping water means or implies. And considering you have a river running alongside your fortress... is fussing with making a well even necessary?
As in real life, dripping comes from above and sides, this is the most crucial thing to remember. Contrary to real life however, apparently in DF you can build walls in the air (on a ramp) and it will create a new ceiling for the level below effectively patching the dripping from above.
The river is outside the fortress gates - last thing you want is Urist McHydrophage running out the main gate for a lil sip while the green tide of the goblin siege pours in after him
Your dwarves are happier when drinking from a well (though they usually drink alcohol). The game is super complex especially when it comes to your dwarves moods. Drinking from the stream is okay in the beginning but they can get agitated over time if they have to keep drinking directly from the stream. It’s considered more civilized to drink from the well and can cause moods from dropping over time a little bit.
@@OnlyJustCrazybut you can channel water from the brook to an inside well. That's what I always do, have never figured that I could use a aquifer... or I dip the well in an underground lake (and hope that I didn't pull up Gollum with my water ;) )
Amazing videos, a friend gifted me this game when it released and I'm just falling down the rabbit hole, and your tutorial are dwarves saviors While following your actions at 6:45, it seems that putting one dwarf on Hauling will transform the Hauling labor into "only selected do this", and that's why things are not being moved around in the fortress anymore
Hey guys, if the well part was confusing, I think I can explain simply: 1. An Aquifer-type block will fill spaces below itself and next to itself with water 2. Blind wanted to fill a space with water and put a well going down into the space. 3. To prevent the room with the well filling up with water, he had to dig out the space above the room and remove the ceiling/floor between the two levels, then fill the space with regular walls. 4. He also replaced the aquifer-type walls of the well room with regular walls. So, the three layers were: Bottom/Water Pool, Middle/Well Room, Top/Aquifer replaced with walls
Please continue this series soon! Ive never played Dwarf Fortress but I think I'll get it this weekend now! Hopefully I can learn enough to not totally fail when I start.
Hello Blind. Just a suggestion in order to accelerate our search through youtube. Maybe you should add a features list for each youtube video you make, detailing all the points you introduce and present in DF steam version. For example, in this video, you have presented the construction of the well using aquifer, the making of clothes using pig tails etc. Your video are very thrilling to watch, but when trying to replicate your advices, sometimes it's hard to remember on which video they are presented.
Another note on 25:00 with bedroom creation: if you have construction of a door and bed while creating bedrooms, the multi tool auto detects these too. Hilariously, if a bed or door doesn't get placed and construction is suspended, they can have a room with no bed hahah
But... Won't the dwarves assigned to those bedrooms end up with recurring negative thoughts? Specifically about being forced to sleep on the floor...? I haven't experimented with this sort of penny-pinching chicanery, so I genuinely don't know. xD
I'm so confused by everything you did with the aquifer. What benefits were you trying to gain by doing all that instead of just going to the layer above the aquifer and channeling down into it? That's how I've been building my wells, and if I need more water I just build another well nearby.
same here. I don't understand what the point was to go above it and down. Is the aquifer no longer an issue? Do you....remove the source of the aquifer and you will no longer have additional issues with aquifer in the fort eventually?
@@twentyfor8351 he "patched" the celling from above with walls, so prevented the level where he built the well to be flooded from above. As he said, aquifers come from the celling and walls, but not from the floor. He doesn't want to channel from above, because his base is too deep, I guess. That would be bad for logistics. Edit: actually he built the well one level below than I thought he would, but the whole gig was needed anyway, because wells require an open space above them.
When I first got the game I did not expect to put in the equivalent time of a university degree to understand how things work. These are very helpful. Taking notes.
I am officially happy with this new series, always looking forward to more. Also, I think I followed the well tutorial, but it might be a good idea to try remaking it as a quick tips video too, at some point. Either way, thank you again, keep up the good work. ^_^
I didn't understand at all how the well/aquifer worked, like, you don't want to flood your base, so you dig weirdly for just wet walls and use the moisture that gets through, but I didn't understand how you scope the position of the aquifer, where it ends/begins, or the diferrence between wet walls lower, and wet walls in higher levels. The only thing you need is 4 of water in one space and well over that right? Can't you just use the moisture walls to have that slowly filled and then seal it?
So as to not get flooded ? Imagine the aquifer as a body of water (which is exactly what it is). If you dig down into it from above its safe you basically end up with a hole that goes into water. If you dig into it from bellow it then it is going to fall into you, same as if you dig into it from the side if that makes sense.
I'm also a little bit confused - why is it that the well should fill up with water, but the wall that touches the wood stockpile doesn't flood that room with it?
@@Jademalo Because those tiles are not actually aquifer tiles. The water drop simply indicates that a tile is humid due to the presence of water (it doesnt indicate if a tile is an aquifer or not). When digging close to an aquifer you will first encounter a "border" of humid tiles that aren't actually aquifer tiles but simply being watered by the aquifer one block over if that makes sense. So the tiles close to the wood stockpile are the aquifer border, if he dug them out then those new empty tiles would start getting filled in with water from the aquifer
@@renatopereira2315 I think that's part of why he is having so much trouble with his well then. He built right on the edge. Only something like 3 or 4 actual aquifer tiles are feeding into that huge hole. With how fast the water is drying up that will never work.
The proft doesn't have to be green, I often have a yellow profit and the trader is happy with it. I think it might depend on how good your broker is? Though I always go for yellow. I tend to think of green as being ripped off.
Right. On that trade the profit was 3500 or something. I normally make trades where their profit is 1000. There may be an advantage to giving visiting traders a huge profit but that wasn't explained.
I'm only 7 hours into my first playthrough of this and the well section completely baffled me. That's OK, I have a brook right outside my fort. It's not as safe but it should be fine(?)
Newbie DF player from Steam. Love your tutorial vids, been following each one for days now, starting with your first Tutorial fort on release. You asked for feedback on the Well part: You completely lost me there. Maybe going into further detail on WHY a ramp/digout is needed at each point would be helpful. Personally I followed the guide on building a well going down to the Cavern and for me, that was miles easier.
Loving the lets play mate, been followiong you for a bit now due to DF coming out on steam with all your news updates etc before hand getting me hyped, now its out I'm having a blast and having a expert blind man leading the blind into the cavenrs below, I must have restared 6 times as I was like ooo and ooooooooooooooo learning off you (from the quick tutorials) and some of my own missguided clicking, im loving this series and follong you kind of step by step in my own way, I shall say I have 7 happy bearded men and two got married with some bearded ladies im guessing your guide is showing me the right way for once to make them happy hahaha.
I have no clue what so ever what's going on lmao. Is there a reason why the rooms are a certain size? I can't keep track of which level is which when you were building the well? What does digging a channel do??? How is the channel button any different from the slope button? And where would you use either of them? Why did we get more dwarves? Is there any way to stop that? Or is there a number of dwarves we want to aim for??? What's the purpose of the barrels? Do they allow you to stack multiple items into one location? Is that how we make stuff like the wood stockpile more compact? Each room gets a cabinet and chest but what is determining that the dwarves put their "loot" into those boxes and not into the stockpile? Or someone else's chest? Are there room permissions? I saw something about food rotting? Do all foods degrade like that? Do seeds degrade? Is there some type of long term food storage that we can build that would bypass that issue? Why is access to water important? The dwarves drink alcohol don't they? I think you'd be able to explain this all better if you commentated in post and had notes off to the side that would address this kind of stuff. The game is REALLY complex and I have no idea how much of what's being done is [Advanced Meta Gaming] vs [Basic Need to Know]. Thanks for the vids.
25:21 and those bedrooms will be taken by dwarves as their own, which means you will need more beds for those that don't have one. Create a dormatory instead that way they don't claim the beds.
Hey Blind I heard that stone pots are better than barrels according to the wiki they weigh 1/4 less, with the same capacity and don't require wood. So why do I see no one using them? Would you recommend them?
wow you get so much done so much quicker than me, even playing slow, im trying to follow along and im almost a year ahead ingame time but only done some of what you have lmao
The one or two things in my opinion missing from Dwarf Fortress are Shops which should be in game and Rune Craft which probably is not fitting? Shops: You can set zone called shop and adventures can buy items from there. What you place inside the stock piles in the zone are for sale. So you could make armor stances in one shop to make it armor shop and so on. This would give you reason to stock up on armor, weapon, food, drinks and so on which would generate little passive money by having adventures coming and buying stuff. Rune craft: Dwarfs are known for making legendary weapons but what about magical weapons? It would be cool if you had Fire, Ice, Lighting swords and hammers where you would need the weapon and rune crafter to make magical weapon. Failure on process will destroy the weapon and you have to start from the beginning. It would be neat to make yourself known for making best magical armor. You could easily make that there are several runes and the Dwarf can practice one of them. Like more defense it only training defense rune crafting so when you try to make flame sword your rune crafting modified is 1 for that while making fire protection is 5 times modifier which means the success rate and how good the item will be. This would open up possibility to make Magical Shop in middle of Dungeons full of Monsters to lure Adventures to have their adventure for magical items 😂 But I only want the Shop.
watched the well part two times... didn't get it it's not very clear how many floors you go up, where you make the well (i guess 2 z levels under? but where is the reservoir then?) also, isn't having one z level of water dangerous since water would be laced with mud? I always make a 2z level deep reservoir
Had to re watch the well tutorial few times. Ramps, ceilings, walls? it's confusing because when you change layers, idk if you went up or down because it's so fast. But overall awesome series!
Wait I think I understand a bit more now. We're cutting INTO the water rocks, and the first/bottom part is where the water is stored, one level up is where the well goes, and one level above that we need to make a ceiling so water won't seep from the top. Again because we're cutting into water rocks, therefore need to account for the ceiling as well as the walls.
In my (limited) experience, you don't actually have to channel out an aquifer ceiling, just mine away the full (wall) block above. I think a floor is too thin to be an aquifer.
You seem to be lucky! New player here but I have to say that anytime I select a map-tile with a light aquifer, it seems that no matter where I dig 2 layers down there's just waterlogged stone/sand/clay/dirt 360 degrees around me in all directions. Not a patch of dry ground to dig through, so no aquifer wells for me!
Day 1 of asking for more than 1 episode of this series per day. (I love this series and if it just isn't doable for you due to scheduling then that is absolutely understandable)
Im gonna have to come back to the well part, I just have no idea what was going on. The Z levels really threw it. I wonder if you could supplement it with a sketch, kinda side on? I'll be trying :D
@@farske Basically dripping comes from above and sides, but not from below, so he made some patching with walls to prevent the level where he built well to be flooded.
I had to watch that aquafer part a couple times, but in the end there it clicked. lol I've been loving this game so far, but my brain can't wrap around it half the time. lol
I don’t know if it is a good idea, but since my aquifer had so many laters, I dug a channel (for a well) on the level where all my dwarves are. I dug a single line hallway behind it. Put a flood gate there. Then channeled a tunnel down from the top of the aquifer to that hallway and use the floodgate to control the water level. If anyone knows problems with this, let me know please.
As useful as it is to see how to deal with an aquifer, maybe start with how they actually work? I see a few stockpiles you have next to aquifer tiles, why do they not leak?
Wait so aquifers are the blocks themselves and they gradually output water? I don't know why but I was always under the impression that aquifers were big pockets of water and thus didn't have any leeway to be dug into like that. Is that what you're getting at here or are both of these things the case and the damp zone just extends a bit out of the pocket? Either way this definitely makes them easier to deal with.
Hey man thanks for the content. I think this iteration has been the most helpful so far, just wondering though, why isn't water seeping into your wood stockpile? The one next to your well
I love these videos! The well part was too fast though. Trying to watch you do the stuff and also trying to keep track on what level and square you are was impossible for me.
I'm a little confused by the interaction with items that are in bins or bags. You said that you couldn't process plants because they were in bags; does this mean that you'll have 'storage' stockpiles that use bins and bags, but have them linked to send out items to 'use' stockpiles that don't allow bins/bags? Is that how that works? Also, I thought the trade depot needed a direct path of several tiles wide? Yours is underground with only stairs linking, does that mean caravans can use your stairs?
My first strange mood just had to be my glass maker wanting glass I couldn't make because I didn't have access to sand and didn't buy any...oh the chaos that ensued.
The aquifer is still quite confusing to me, but it's probably because I don't understand where the water is coming from nor what to do with it, so your how to build a well tutorial helps a lot! A question though, can water monsters come through it? All in all, it's very good seeing how much you can get away with a preliminary design for a base (although mine is more square, i am a square fan). I'm playing it very slow, my second migrant wave came and it's a bit of a panic thinking what can I do with 20 dwarves now, maybe it's time for me to find an actual goal for my fort!
I don't believe entities can spawn in water if the water isn't in a cave or at least touching the map border, so it should be safe. Most freshwater creatures tend to be harmless if you're not in an area that is Wild or Evil or in cavewater, anyway.
Quick question, you have aquifiers next to your wood stockpile/workshop room. Shouldn't they leak into that or do you have to mine into them first. The wiki mentions that they leak into neighbouring tiles so im not quite sure why they don't do it in this instance.
Those tiles aren't necessarily part of the aquifer, but possibly just damp/wet walls. Any wall tile that's next to some source of water (like an aquifer) is marked as damp and gets the water drop icon. It doesn't indicate whether a wall tile is an actual aquifer. For example, wall tiles next to a river are also marked as damp with the icon but won't leak water into adjacent spaces. Similarly, a tile next to an aquifer might also be marked as damp but won't leak water.
Question on well. The layer above the well room, -8, is done first, right? Channel down carefully, immediately fill up with walls. The way I understand it, putting a wall in gives the tile a new floor element which no longer drops water onto empty tiles below. Only then do you dig out the well room and secure it with walls against aquififer from the sides. Now you have safe well room that is neither filled with water from the sides nor from the ceiling (well room -9 ceiling is the floor part of -8, actually). Then you dig out -10 which will slowly fill with water. Put well onto -9, done. Unfortunately I don't have aquifer on my map, I do have a river, though. Problem is, if I want my well underground (and I do), the water from river will push upwards to its origin level and flood my well room. Without exploiting mechanics (diagonal pressure reduction), how do I solve this?
Man I have been terrible to my dwarves. I never built a tavern or a temple and I’m well into midsummer. Nor have I started brewing. Going into this game while KNOWING NOTHING. Is a great way to commit terrible dwarves crimes
i really couldnt follow the aquifer/well steps there , also , idk if its just me but i'm having some trouble understanding visually how the elevation works lmao
Curious about how important water sources are. I know a well lets you get water for your hospital, (cleaning wounds, as far as I know), but what other uses are there for water? Dwarves can drink from it in an emergency if you somehow run out of alcohol if I'm not mistaken. But do I need to use any more wells than just the one, other than efficiency if my base is huge? Would appreciate you going over channeling/layers a little bit more if you get time too please :) I understood that you channeled down a layer from your main z level, then channeled down a little bit more. If I wanted to build say, a really deep well like you did here for some reason, how would I do that so that dwarves don't get trapped down there/can get out, without digging through the wall and building some stairs up?
The “bug” with the wall smoothing that stops the aquifer is still present in the game, and I’m not even sure it’s a bug, sounds like a reasonable technique. As soon as I hit claystones that can be smoothed, I stop wasting blocks.
Save file download link
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1051336496059273216/1052623431356653648/region2_-_Tutorial_fort.rar
1:58 create front doors to protect fortress
2:42 create gather fruit zone
4:05 create process plants job to create pigtail seeds
4:48 create pigtail stockpile next to farm plot
6:45 specialize one dwarf to hauling and mining only
8:48 limit access to tavern and altar to citizens only
9:10 create cloth stockpile
9:50 trader arrived
10:25 move cut gems to trade depot
11:05 disable children doing certain chores to keep them mentally sane
12:15 request broker to trade depot
12:50 request iron anvil and other items for next year's caravan
14:45 trade cut gems for metal bar, ropes, instrument, toy, empty bags, bin of leather with caravan
16:50 traded items are used to satisfy needs if a dwarf starts a strange mood
17:15 check on upset child dwarf
17:45 create toy stockpile on tavern
18:45 create doors to tavern
19:00 create loom and clothing workshop
20:20 create cloth bags
21:05 create bedrooms with diagonal doors
21:15 smooth walls of tavern
22:00 create beds
22:28 create process plants job (pigtails)
22:45 create work orders for coffers and cabinets
24:20 married dwarfs share beds
24:30 create second stone worker workshop
25:05 create bedroom zones in multi mode
25:30 create work order for rock doors
26:20 check cloth supplies
27:15 starting water supply, deal with the aquifer
35:10 use garbage dump to quickly remove boulders from well
36:04 create mechanics workshop
36:40 create rock mechanisms for a well
38:16 create well
40:10 recap and next episode preview
YOU SIR ARE A SAINT
hello @blind this sould be pinned
@blind: You would do well to pin these comments in cases you don't create sections in the video's timeline yourself.
Would help all parties involved, including you.
Thank you so much!
After watching Nookriums tutorial vids this is the BEST second tutorial for Dwarf Fortress. Before people get offended here's why:
I am a complete noob who hasn't played RimWorld but loved Banished, Towns and other similar games. I have the time to watch 6hrs of tutorials (yay Xmas!)
Nookriums covers basic mechanics, where to click and how to set up things in his own way. It is an actual mechanical tutorial that allows you to mess up on your own and make your own decisions while failing and then going out and finding what you have missed and try again.
Blind however helps you know how to deal with the situations you are in. Manager optimisation, trading, cloth, gems etc. This gives me an insight in how to optimize how he does things and I can choose to go his way or not.
Keep up the good work Blind, I appreciate this and will be binging your vids for days to come as I get to grips with the game.
These longform let's play tutorial videos you're doing are my preferred format. I like the quick tutorials as well, but these longer videos let you explain in more detail, which is usually what I'm looking for in a tutorial.
Glad you like them! This series will continue for awhile I expect.
I second this. I’ve found tons of tutorials for dwarf fortress since I’ve begun playing (steam release) but most don’t go very in-depth on HOW/WHY things are done. Very much appreciate the very step-wise content Blind has put out here.
This is honestly better entertainment for me than any tv shows or movies, or even playing the game :D
wait til you see pete completes rimworld gameplay 😂😂😂
I'm torn between watching and playing... this game is incredibly addictive!
@@freaktopianexile2083 Yes, yes it is! I've told my wife the amazing stories I experienced in the game, but she was deeply disappointed when she saw the default game (ASCII). But some of my most memorable moments were when I had a vampire problem and a forgotten beast with deadly dust. I send in the vampire suspects, they managed to kill the beast only to die moments later. Both problems were solved ;-)
@@annekekramer3835 I only got to know about the game via the steam discovery queue, I've watched a couple of videos with the old interface, and although I decided to wait for the steam version, because it's easier on the eyes, I think after a while your brain starts to "translate" the ASCII into creative images... I started gaming on a TRS-80, and I definitely remember the stuff we played back then completely different than the screenshots I've seen in recent times ;-) It has a steep learning curve, and I like that - currently I'm trying to figure out how the herd of elephants got into the room... ;-)
@@KevinTan hes ok................................. :P i kid love him also
Had to drop in a comment to praise you for how great these videos are. Looooooooong time DF player here and up until now I found Capt'n Duck's tutorials to be the best. You have not only taken the crown, but smashed the throne, let the Forgotten Beasts out of their cages and channeled out a magma vein on your way out, leaving the fortress in a tantrum spiral. Well done, sir.
Man I do love Capt'n Duck. Thats how I originally learned to play on DF2012
the well part for me was really confusing :( If I had a sketch from the side view, it might help I think
Yeah, didn't make much sense. There wasn't an explanation for why certain levels and areas were dug and then replaced with walls, like what are the mechanics in play or the reason for doing these things?
Took me a few hours as well to grasp the concept as well (har har). Let's see if I can simplify his long-winded explanation a bit...
He is building the well over 3 layers - the lowest point (where all the building is) will be the bottom, the next level up will be where the actual well is built, and the final is an artificial "roof" that you make. You need this "roof" in place, because any tiles marked as water will seep water once they are mined.
So, you're basically going up above where you'd like your well to be, making channels to 'open' up the roof above your well, and then building walls over them, effectively stopping them from seeping water from above to the lower tiles.
Next you will again mine out the surrounding aquiferous tiles surrounding where your well will be located, and replace them with walls, as this will stop them from seeping water from the sides.
Hopefully this helps!
I may also be totally wrong about what he's trying to say LOL, but I tried!
Yeah I feel like an entire episode could be used to slowly explain every aspect of using the aquifer. I was confused as to why the aquifer leaked into the well, but not into the wood stockpile on the other side. I wasn't sure why he did certain things and why the game behaves it does. He's great at explaining most aspects of the game. It's definitely just aquifers being complex to use (he even said what he was doing was tricky, and while I vaguely understood parts of it, on the whole it's not super clear). I think this part would benefit from a more scripted tutorial rather than as part of the let's play.
@@BrickInTheHead @BrickInTheHead "why the aquifer leaked into the well, but not into the wood stockpile on the other side"
It's confusing indeed, I guess not all damp walls are equal, some are more "wet" and drippy than others. From my experience not all of them drip to adjacent tiles. As you can see in the video in 34:55, he had to dig through the damp walls to speed up the flooding to forcefully increase the water level.
this is why everyone says to just avoid aquifers when you first start playing lol
I really appreciate this series 😃 please keep doing this
Brilliant work, these videos combined with the premium update have made this game suddenly approachable to players like me who have been trying to get into it for months or (in my case) years. You're the perfect mix of clear, concise and entertaining. Please keep it up man!
Thank you for making such a great explanatory videos! But I didn't get the well/aquifer part at all :( I see that this is something most newbies struggle with, maybe it needs a separate video with more detailed explanation step by step... would be cool.
He "patched" the celling from above with walls to prevent flooding, because aquifers come from sideways and above, but not from the floor.
@@korootz You're going way too fast man, i cant keep up!
@@korootz Then why he pitched the ceiling from above if he wanted it to drip water. I also need help understanding it.
So, I took sometime to understand, until today my fortress began to flood everywhere, lol. So, here is the thing: the aquifier is on the 3 levels that he worked on. The idea is: I will flood the first level and construct the well in the second (above the first). But when you dig into the 2nd level, you are allowing the floor from the 3rd level to spill water. So, that's the key to understand it. If you just dig the 2nd floor and build walls around it, you would still have water coming from the ceiling. So, he went to the 3rd level and channeled the area (important: it must cover all "opened" tiles below). That way, he has removed the floor from the 3rd level (that is the ceiling from 2nd level!). Then, he replaced the floor with walls. That way, he stopped water coming from the ceiling. Then, he went back to the 2nd level and dug around to remove the 2nd floor walls spill (since the water comes from the ceiling and the walls). That way, he managed to stop the water coming from the walls (in the 2nd level) and the ceiling (actually, from the 3rd level). I hope it helps!
Another side note: when you dig below into an aquifier using stairs you are ALREADY removing the ceiling! That's why you will only need to build walls around it to stop the spilling. If you go one level below an isolated aquifier (example, 3x3 stairs) and opens a 5x5 area (just one corridor around the stairs), even if you isolate this below level with walls, you will see water spilling - it's coming from the ceiling!
That half-circle back hallway just behind the tavern is aesthetically pleasing. It also makes me glad Tarn hasn't programmed in noise complaints cuz I can't imagine having a tavern on the other side of your bedroom wall.
Hmmm, I thought there is a noise complaint mechanism, or has that been removed? Or was that only for workshops?
So, at first the aquifer well technique was confusing, but as soon as i started to pay attention to which level you were on (under mini map), it all made perfect sense 👍 really enjoy your tutorials and streams, thank you!
I was waiting for more episodes in this series, thanks a lot!
Just want to say that after going through several Dwarf Fortress tutorials, I greatly appreciate how quick and to the point yours are.
31:21 This is not a bug and precisely how it works. A smooth stone wall will prevent the aquifer from leaking. Where the confusion comes from is that when people try to mine into the middle of an aquifer and do not realize that the ceiling tile above will drop down.
The aquifer portion of the video... man this is confusing. I'm not grasping how you're figuring out where the aquifer is or why channeling is required. As a new player there isn't much explanation about what the dripping water means or implies. And considering you have a river running alongside your fortress... is fussing with making a well even necessary?
I think he said the brook is salt water
As in real life, dripping comes from above and sides, this is the most crucial thing to remember. Contrary to real life however, apparently in DF you can build walls in the air (on a ramp) and it will create a new ceiling for the level below effectively patching the dripping from above.
The river is outside the fortress gates - last thing you want is Urist McHydrophage running out the main gate for a lil sip while the green tide of the goblin siege pours in after him
Your dwarves are happier when drinking from a well (though they usually drink alcohol). The game is super complex especially when it comes to your dwarves moods. Drinking from the stream is okay in the beginning but they can get agitated over time if they have to keep drinking directly from the stream. It’s considered more civilized to drink from the well and can cause moods from dropping over time a little bit.
@@OnlyJustCrazybut you can channel water from the brook to an inside well. That's what I always do, have never figured that I could use a aquifer... or I dip the well in an underground lake (and hope that I didn't pull up Gollum with my water ;) )
Amazing videos, a friend gifted me this game when it released and I'm just falling down the rabbit hole, and your tutorial are dwarves saviors
While following your actions at 6:45, it seems that putting one dwarf on Hauling will transform the Hauling labor into "only selected do this", and that's why things are not being moved around in the fortress anymore
Hey guys, if the well part was confusing, I think I can explain simply:
1. An Aquifer-type block will fill spaces below itself and next to itself with water
2. Blind wanted to fill a space with water and put a well going down into the space.
3. To prevent the room with the well filling up with water, he had to dig out the space above the room and remove the ceiling/floor between the two levels, then fill the space with regular walls.
4. He also replaced the aquifer-type walls of the well room with regular walls.
So, the three layers were: Bottom/Water Pool, Middle/Well Room, Top/Aquifer replaced with walls
Please continue this series soon! Ive never played Dwarf Fortress but I think I'll get it this weekend now! Hopefully I can learn enough to not totally fail when I start.
Hello Blind. Just a suggestion in order to accelerate our search through youtube. Maybe you should add a features list for each youtube video you make, detailing all the points you introduce and present in DF steam version. For example, in this video, you have presented the construction of the well using aquifer, the making of clothes using pig tails etc. Your video are very thrilling to watch, but when trying to replicate your advices, sometimes it's hard to remember on which video they are presented.
Great explanation on the aquifer and well inside the base, been playing with floodgates and channel the river through my base to get access to water
Another note on 25:00 with bedroom creation: if you have construction of a door and bed while creating bedrooms, the multi tool auto detects these too. Hilariously, if a bed or door doesn't get placed and construction is suspended, they can have a room with no bed hahah
But... Won't the dwarves assigned to those bedrooms end up with recurring negative thoughts? Specifically about being forced to sleep on the floor...?
I haven't experimented with this sort of penny-pinching chicanery, so I genuinely don't know. xD
@@benjaminhoare5927 yes they weren't happy and that's how I figured out they had a bedroom with no bed 😭
I'm so confused by everything you did with the aquifer. What benefits were you trying to gain by doing all that instead of just going to the layer above the aquifer and channeling down into it? That's how I've been building my wells, and if I need more water I just build another well nearby.
same here. I don't understand what the point was to go above it and down. Is the aquifer no longer an issue? Do you....remove the source of the aquifer and you will no longer have additional issues with aquifer in the fort eventually?
@@twentyfor8351 he "patched" the celling from above with walls, so prevented the level where he built the well to be flooded from above. As he said, aquifers come from the celling and walls, but not from the floor. He doesn't want to channel from above, because his base is too deep, I guess. That would be bad for logistics.
Edit: actually he built the well one level below than I thought he would, but the whole gig was needed anyway, because wells require an open space above them.
I guess the only reason would be to have the well closer to your actual fort in z levels... Otherwise I don't understand either.
Love the series, even tho it is a tutorial it is highly entertaining
When I first got the game I did not expect to put in the equivalent time of a university degree to understand how things work. These are very helpful. Taking notes.
Your videos have been invaluable for me learning how to play this game. Thanks for these
I enjoyed the lesson, all good stuff. The well part I had to watch twice, but I got it. Thanks
:D
Love these videos! Could we maybe get a short video explaining the parts of a block space (ceiling, floor, walls, etc.)?
You're the reason I am still trying to learn this game
Hey super super helpful man. Much thanks for this series
I am officially happy with this new series, always looking forward to more. Also, I think I followed the well tutorial, but it might be a good idea to try remaking it as a quick tips video too, at some point. Either way, thank you again, keep up the good work. ^_^
I didn't understand at all how the well/aquifer worked, like, you don't want to flood your base, so you dig weirdly for just wet walls and use the moisture that gets through, but I didn't understand how you scope the position of the aquifer, where it ends/begins, or the diferrence between wet walls lower, and wet walls in higher levels.
The only thing you need is 4 of water in one space and well over that right? Can't you just use the moisture walls to have that slowly filled and then seal it?
It wouldn't get filled sufficiently from an adjacent damp wall, it would create at most a 1-2 levels deep water tile.
"Hold me closer, Goblin Dancer"
Thank you for this video series, hope you continue.
"I have seen stranger things. Even the show wasn't that good."
Hahahaha thanks for quick wit!
The aquifer part was pretty confusing… are you able to elaborate more on why you clear area above it and channel down to it?
So as to not get flooded ? Imagine the aquifer as a body of water (which is exactly what it is). If you dig down into it from above its safe you basically end up with a hole that goes into water. If you dig into it from bellow it then it is going to fall into you, same as if you dig into it from the side if that makes sense.
Actually, I just found your mini guide for it! Your an absolute G man! I can’t wait to get into this game!
I'm also a little bit confused - why is it that the well should fill up with water, but the wall that touches the wood stockpile doesn't flood that room with it?
@@Jademalo Because those tiles are not actually aquifer tiles. The water drop simply indicates that a tile is humid due to the presence of water (it doesnt indicate if a tile is an aquifer or not). When digging close to an aquifer you will first encounter a "border" of humid tiles that aren't actually aquifer tiles but simply being watered by the aquifer one block over if that makes sense. So the tiles close to the wood stockpile are the aquifer border, if he dug them out then those new empty tiles would start getting filled in with water from the aquifer
@@renatopereira2315 I think that's part of why he is having so much trouble with his well then. He built right on the edge. Only something like 3 or 4 actual aquifer tiles are feeding into that huge hole. With how fast the water is drying up that will never work.
Honestly this flew right over my head.
This playlist is my first encounter with this game and I don't get the thing with aquifer.
you make this game a joy to play, thank you very much!
Playing along with the save, having a blast.
The proft doesn't have to be green, I often have a yellow profit and the trader is happy with it. I think it might depend on how good your broker is? Though I always go for yellow. I tend to think of green as being ripped off.
Right. On that trade the profit was 3500 or something. I normally make trades where their profit is 1000. There may be an advantage to giving visiting traders a huge profit but that wasn't explained.
Yeah, I always go for yellow and the trader always happily accepts.
Good stuff, thanks for all these tutorial vids.
I'm only 7 hours into my first playthrough of this and the well section completely baffled me. That's OK, I have a brook right outside my fort. It's not as safe but it should be fine(?)
I kinda followed it. Haven't played in years and I never used this technique to deal with aquifer.
OMG this multi-selection is so easy... thanks.
Newbie DF player from Steam. Love your tutorial vids, been following each one for days now, starting with your first Tutorial fort on release. You asked for feedback on the Well part: You completely lost me there. Maybe going into further detail on WHY a ramp/digout is needed at each point would be helpful. Personally I followed the guide on building a well going down to the Cavern and for me, that was miles easier.
Loving the lets play mate, been followiong you for a bit now due to DF coming out on steam with all your news updates etc before hand getting me hyped, now its out I'm having a blast and having a expert blind man leading the blind into the cavenrs below, I must have restared 6 times as I was like ooo and ooooooooooooooo learning off you (from the quick tutorials) and some of my own missguided clicking, im loving this series and follong you kind of step by step in my own way, I shall say I have 7 happy bearded men and two got married with some bearded ladies im guessing your guide is showing me the right way for once to make them happy hahaha.
I have no clue what so ever what's going on lmao.
Is there a reason why the rooms are a certain size?
I can't keep track of which level is which when you were building the well?
What does digging a channel do??? How is the channel button any different from the slope button? And where would you use either of them?
Why did we get more dwarves? Is there any way to stop that? Or is there a number of dwarves we want to aim for???
What's the purpose of the barrels? Do they allow you to stack multiple items into one location? Is that how we make stuff like the wood stockpile more compact?
Each room gets a cabinet and chest but what is determining that the dwarves put their "loot" into those boxes and not into the stockpile? Or someone else's chest? Are there room permissions?
I saw something about food rotting? Do all foods degrade like that? Do seeds degrade? Is there some type of long term food storage that we can build that would bypass that issue?
Why is access to water important? The dwarves drink alcohol don't they?
I think you'd be able to explain this all better if you commentated in post and had notes off to the side that would address this kind of stuff. The game is REALLY complex and I have no idea how much of what's being done is [Advanced Meta Gaming] vs [Basic Need to Know]. Thanks for the vids.
25:21 and those bedrooms will be taken by dwarves as their own, which means you will need more beds for those that don't have one. Create a dormatory instead that way they don't claim the beds.
How do the walls make ceilings? Am so confused
Apparently in DF you can build walls in the air, on a ramp, which becomes the new ceiling for the level below.
Hey Blind I heard that stone pots are better than barrels according to the wiki they weigh 1/4 less, with the same capacity and don't require wood.
So why do I see no one using them?
Would you recommend them?
You can trade with the profit being yellow. You don't have to go all the way to green. Just need a tiny bit of negotiation skill
wow you get so much done so much quicker than me, even playing slow, im trying to follow along and im almost a year ahead ingame time but only done some of what you have lmao
The whole well digging confused the heck out of me
Typically, I request seeds for year 2 since I'm far more reliant on underground farming. I also ALWAYS request alcohol.
I friggen love this channel and your content. How are you keeping this pace!?😅
The one or two things in my opinion missing from Dwarf Fortress are Shops which should be in game and Rune Craft which probably is not fitting?
Shops: You can set zone called shop and adventures can buy items from there. What you place inside the stock piles in the zone are for sale. So you could make armor stances in one shop to make it armor shop and so on. This would give you reason to stock up on armor, weapon, food, drinks and so on which would generate little passive money by having adventures coming and buying stuff.
Rune craft: Dwarfs are known for making legendary weapons but what about magical weapons? It would be cool if you had Fire, Ice, Lighting swords and hammers where you would need the weapon and rune crafter to make magical weapon. Failure on process will destroy the weapon and you have to start from the beginning. It would be neat to make yourself known for making best magical armor. You could easily make that there are several runes and the Dwarf can practice one of them. Like more defense it only training defense rune crafting so when you try to make flame sword your rune crafting modified is 1 for that while making fire protection is 5 times modifier which means the success rate and how good the item will be.
This would open up possibility to make Magical Shop in middle of Dungeons full of Monsters to lure Adventures to have their adventure for magical items 😂
But I only want the Shop.
watched the well part two times... didn't get it
it's not very clear how many floors you go up, where you make the well (i guess 2 z levels under? but where is the reservoir then?)
also, isn't having one z level of water dangerous since water would be laced with mud? I always make a 2z level deep reservoir
Had to re watch the well tutorial few times. Ramps, ceilings, walls? it's confusing because when you change layers, idk if you went up or down because it's so fast.
But overall awesome series!
Wait I think I understand a bit more now. We're cutting INTO the water rocks, and the first/bottom part is where the water is stored, one level up is where the well goes, and one level above that we need to make a ceiling so water won't seep from the top.
Again because we're cutting into water rocks, therefore need to account for the ceiling as well as the walls.
In my (limited) experience, you don't actually have to channel out an aquifer ceiling, just mine away the full (wall) block above. I think a floor is too thin to be an aquifer.
Not sure I followed the well instructions.
i cant seem to follow the well tutorial part and working with an aquifer, every time I try in my games ends in disaster
You seem to be lucky! New player here but I have to say that anytime I select a map-tile with a light aquifer, it seems that no matter where I dig 2 layers down there's just waterlogged stone/sand/clay/dirt 360 degrees around me in all directions. Not a patch of dry ground to dig through, so no aquifer wells for me!
Day 1 of asking for more than 1 episode of this series per day.
(I love this series and if it just isn't doable for you due to scheduling then that is absolutely understandable)
Good to hear I'm not the only one who doesn't think Stranger Things was anything to get excited about haha
Im gonna have to come back to the well part, I just have no idea what was going on. The Z levels really threw it.
I wonder if you could supplement it with a sketch, kinda side on?
I'll be trying :D
Nope, tried. I dont get it.
@@farske Basically dripping comes from above and sides, but not from below, so he made some patching with walls to prevent the level where he built well to be flooded.
I could totally follow the aquifer part :)
the aquifer part was super difficult to follow and i didnt really get it.
I had to watch that aquafer part a couple times, but in the end there it clicked. lol I've been loving this game so far, but my brain can't wrap around it half the time. lol
The aquifer part is really confusing me.
I don’t know if it is a good idea, but since my aquifer had so many laters, I dug a channel (for a well) on the level where all my dwarves are. I dug a single line hallway behind it. Put a flood gate there. Then channeled a tunnel down from the top of the aquifer to that hallway and use the floodgate to control the water level. If anyone knows problems with this, let me know please.
certified fresh upload pog.
As useful as it is to see how to deal with an aquifer, maybe start with how they actually work? I see a few stockpiles you have next to aquifer tiles, why do they not leak?
you vid is a gem. good jobs
Wait so aquifers are the blocks themselves and they gradually output water? I don't know why but I was always under the impression that aquifers were big pockets of water and thus didn't have any leeway to be dug into like that. Is that what you're getting at here or are both of these things the case and the damp zone just extends a bit out of the pocket? Either way this definitely makes them easier to deal with.
Hey man thanks for the content. I think this iteration has been the most helpful so far, just wondering though, why isn't water seeping into your wood stockpile? The one next to your well
Thank you
That aquifer explanation was a touch rough to follow.
I love these videos! The well part was too fast though. Trying to watch you do the stuff and also trying to keep track on what level and square you are was impossible for me.
I'm a little confused by the interaction with items that are in bins or bags. You said that you couldn't process plants because they were in bags; does this mean that you'll have 'storage' stockpiles that use bins and bags, but have them linked to send out items to 'use' stockpiles that don't allow bins/bags? Is that how that works?
Also, I thought the trade depot needed a direct path of several tiles wide? Yours is underground with only stairs linking, does that mean caravans can use your stairs?
You really blundered that well and it's explanation haha. It's hard so I don't fault you.
im still not getting the aquifer shytt lmfao
Can you explain more with what you did with the well I'm very new at this game and wanna learn
thanks super helpful!
My first strange mood just had to be my glass maker wanting glass I couldn't make because I didn't have access to sand and didn't buy any...oh the chaos that ensued.
thank you
I have no idea what you were doing or why with the well
I'm just finding out about this game and it's crazy how similar RimWorld is to this.
The aquifer is still quite confusing to me, but it's probably because I don't understand where the water is coming from nor what to do with it, so your how to build a well tutorial helps a lot! A question though, can water monsters come through it?
All in all, it's very good seeing how much you can get away with a preliminary design for a base (although mine is more square, i am a square fan).
I'm playing it very slow, my second migrant wave came and it's a bit of a panic thinking what can I do with 20 dwarves now, maybe it's time for me to find an actual goal for my fort!
I don't believe entities can spawn in water if the water isn't in a cave or at least touching the map border, so it should be safe. Most freshwater creatures tend to be harmless if you're not in an area that is Wild or Evil or in cavewater, anyway.
That merchant really ripped you off
3550 of profit over 810 in items?
Quick question, you have aquifiers next to your wood stockpile/workshop room. Shouldn't they leak into that or do you have to mine into them first. The wiki mentions that they leak into neighbouring tiles so im not quite sure why they don't do it in this instance.
Those tiles aren't necessarily part of the aquifer, but possibly just damp/wet walls. Any wall tile that's next to some source of water (like an aquifer) is marked as damp and gets the water drop icon. It doesn't indicate whether a wall tile is an actual aquifer. For example, wall tiles next to a river are also marked as damp with the icon but won't leak water into adjacent spaces. Similarly, a tile next to an aquifer might also be marked as damp but won't leak water.
@@ShuraClueless Ahhh that makes sense thank you so much :)
Question on well.
The layer above the well room, -8, is done first, right? Channel down carefully, immediately fill up with walls. The way I understand it, putting a wall in gives the tile a new floor element which no longer drops water onto empty tiles below.
Only then do you dig out the well room and secure it with walls against aquififer from the sides. Now you have safe well room that is neither filled with water from the sides nor from the ceiling (well room -9 ceiling is the floor part of -8, actually).
Then you dig out -10 which will slowly fill with water.
Put well onto -9, done.
Unfortunately I don't have aquifer on my map, I do have a river, though. Problem is, if I want my well underground (and I do), the water from river will push upwards to its origin level and flood my well room. Without exploiting mechanics (diagonal pressure reduction), how do I solve this?
I was wondersing why the children in my fortress are all unhappy.. one even starved itself to death >_< Guess it was the chores, thanks!
Keep this up
I think the barrels of alcohol aren't being moved to the tavern because you haven't removed them from the ALL stockpile yet.
Wow.
I didn't understand a single thing about the aquifer.
Man I have been terrible to my dwarves. I never built a tavern or a temple and I’m well into midsummer. Nor have I started brewing. Going into this game while KNOWING NOTHING. Is a great way to commit terrible dwarves crimes
i really couldnt follow the aquifer/well steps there , also , idk if its just me but i'm having some trouble understanding visually how the elevation works lmao
I'm enjoying these tutorials a lot, thank you very much! I'm quite confused by the Aquifer part, do the damp walls create water only when dug out?
Once you've dug past the line of damp walls the ceiling and walls around produce water.
Curious about how important water sources are. I know a well lets you get water for your hospital, (cleaning wounds, as far as I know), but what other uses are there for water? Dwarves can drink from it in an emergency if you somehow run out of alcohol if I'm not mistaken. But do I need to use any more wells than just the one, other than efficiency if my base is huge? Would appreciate you going over channeling/layers a little bit more if you get time too please :) I understood that you channeled down a layer from your main z level, then channeled down a little bit more. If I wanted to build say, a really deep well like you did here for some reason, how would I do that so that dwarves don't get trapped down there/can get out, without digging through the wall and building some stairs up?
Build ramps if you don't wanna build stairs.
The “bug” with the wall smoothing that stops the aquifer is still present in the game, and I’m not even sure it’s a bug, sounds like a reasonable technique.
As soon as I hit claystones that can be smoothed, I stop wasting blocks.