What are the consequences of temporarily having no fresh water source

dwarf-fortress

I am playing in a region where pools freeze up during the winter.

After freezing over I receive a lot of messages telling me that the task give water has been cancelled because the water source is no longer available. What are the exact consequences of not having a water source during a season?

Best Answer

Depending on how well you've prepared, the consequences can vary from irksome to impeding to potentially fatal:

Without a source of clean water, dwarves aren't able to wash themselves. This is irksome at best, as it doesn't even generate unhappy thoughts not to be able to wash, but you don't get the happy thoughts of having washed recently either.
It gets a little more problematic when you have injured dorfs with wounds that need cleaning before suturing up; infections can be nasty and fatal to a dorf.
Finally, if you don't already have either a good stockpile of booze laid in or a working production cycle of seed->plant->booze->seeds that's putting out a steady supply of same, dorfs can in fact die of thirst during the winter days if there isn't even potable water to fall back on.

I highly recommend you make digging your first well a priority, as it spruces up that big main communal dining/meeting room nicely - and eating in a legendary dining room makes for big smiles.

Related Solutions

Trouble creating water source

I have not tried the fill pond strategy to make a farm, but rather the "planned flood" technique.

In 2d...

+---!---+             RRRR
|fffffff|             RRRR
|fffffff| +----+______RRRR
|fffffff|X|wwww?__C__CRRRR
|fffffff| +----+      RRRR
+-------+             RRRR

Where:

R is a river (with 1+ layers of water above it, for pressure)
w is water storage, f is farm (7 f to 1 w)
C is a channel from 1 square above
X is a wall to dig out
? is a door/floodgate hooked to a switch somewhere.
! is a door for mud/water containment

To make the water storage:

dig left C, tunnel, and storage room
build door/floodgate at ?, and connect it to a switch
make sure ? is OPEN
Channel out right C
When room is 7 deep, flip switch

Now, the storage room is filled with 7 * w units of water, one unit per bit of farm!

To make your farm muddy:

Channel at X
Run out of door
Lock door until room is full of mud (and possibly fish)

Are there any advantages or disadvantages for having mixed weapon squads

The possible advantages are that against some heavy armored enemies, mixed damage will improve your possibilities of breaking through the armor. Some enemies are almost immune to slashing or bashing damage. So if the whole squad engage that enemy, they won't waste time hitting with no damage.

The same applies in the opposite way: if you have the correct type of weapon, you will deal more damage to enemies with an armor weak to that kind of damage.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Trouble creating water source

Are there any advantages or disadvantages for having mixed weapon squads

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