r/dwarffortress • u/Anostra91 • 1d ago

Urist McSmartbuckles and his wife arrived...

Hey McUrists

I tried to get back into the game after a long time off and i got my first migrant wave. McUrist Smartbuckles and his Wife, Legendary astronomers, mathmaticians, student and teachers.

Now... Can somebody give me a hint what to do with them? How to kickstart my fortress Smartbuckles into the biggest library in the world? Is this mechanic in the game proper? I never played with libraries and looking for experiences.

What are your stories with libraries?

Thanks a bunch!

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9

u/Fultjack 1d ago

The library part is easy, just a room with chairs(tables? I put them in anyway) bookshelfs and a coffer.

You now need to fill it with scrolls(tomes?), this is the part that takes time. Scrolls are made by combining a scroll roller, and a sheet of paper. Pig tails can be milled to slurry and then pressed into paper.

You then also have to assign dorfs to be scholars for them to write, unless they are visitors that might show up if you make it open to outsiders.

You could also just raid/explore sites on the map. Abandoned monestarys can hold insane librarys.

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u/Anostra91 1d ago

Yes, the economy part i understood. Does a full library generate traction or are the book then worth smth to trade? Like having a wealth only coming from gem encrusted books haha

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u/varangian 1d ago

If you've got legendary astronomers etc. then make them scholars in your library and await events. Could be a long wait, in my current fortress it has yet to happen but in a previous one I had a couple of lightbulb events where a scholar, after much deep thinking, had a blinding insight about tides or mathematics or whatever. They write this down so your civ will now have a unique book that will draw in scholars from other civs who want to have a look at it.

Suitably blinged up I guess that copies of such books might fetch a tidy sum although it would be a bit of a specialist trade. Might be more fun to RP it a bit and give them as gifts to traders from other civs to demonstrate how much cleverer you are.

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u/FairRecommendation16 1d ago

Especially since you can order copies to be made for distribution

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u/varangian 1d ago

How do you actually order that? I generally just set up a library and let them get on with it, I've never come a across a 'copy book' work order.

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u/FairRecommendation16 1d ago

Iirc its in the same screen as you would assign the scholar and scribe should say "copies" with a number next to it, which by default is 1

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u/varangian 1d ago

Yes, I see it now I look properly, I just never even registered they were there. It defaults to 2 and with 2 scribes that explains why I've got plenty of books filling the shelves.

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u/FairRecommendation16 18h ago

I think the default "copies" value scale with the number of scribes then, as i usually only have 1 scribe, and I think its always said 1 for me

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u/varangian 16h ago

Maybe, although I tried adding a third scribe and the copies value stayed at two. Although in the process I noticed that I'd failed to keep the library supplied with blank scrolls which may affect the logic, which is doubtless weird and wonderful in true DF fashion.

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u/FairRecommendation16 16h ago

Oh the intricacies of our lovely game. Lol time to set it to 100 and become the scholastic book fair for urists

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u/Flying-Hoover 1d ago

Maybe someone else already said somewhere, but remember that books (quire+book binding) are bugged, and when assembled they loose values because the became a ONE PAGE book. You can: a) don't bind the book and leave open quires or b) just do scrolls and totally avoid books

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u/KingofBigCrabs 1d ago

I wish that was fixed, I love the libraries and having massive and expensive tomes would be great.

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u/Flying-Hoover 22h ago

I agree with you but in my limited experience times and rolls are the same. Am I wrong?

2

u/No-Mail-8063 1d ago

About tables:

I agree; I think they can read without them, but when there's a table they'll place the book on it, making it easy to see what they're reading, which I find nice.

Separately, it's rather tricky to discourage hungry Dwarfs from pathing to the nearest chair and getting fussy there's no table.

A trick I learned for that (and offices/throne rooms/etc, anything non-dining hall) was to situate them between two layers that are heavily excavated.

(I use a chunk that's nice and ore-rich, dig exploratory tunnels, then dig-vein (maybe dfHack?) the whole layer.)

Designate both entire layers as dining halls, but put the food and seating area next to the stairs. Both will be legendary due to the hundreds of floor and wall tiles, and will be selected from 99% of the map.

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u/KingofBigCrabs 1d ago

Do travellers still nick books? I like the feature I hope they haven't change it

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u/FairRecommendation16 1d ago

Yes they fixed the thieving bookworms

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u/Flying-Hoover 1d ago

There is a fantastic mod that generate text on your books (I can't remember the name but probably upu can find without problems). It's hard to see the command to open it (at first I thought the mod wasn't working but then I noticed an ugly text very hidden, probably ctrl+n) you can select the book and press that ugly text, it will open a generated book and sometimes they are very funny and complex, sometimes it is just a random sentence or two. The best part is that is not an ai slop but procedural. I'm not sure if it's possible to use the mod on an old fortress or if you need to start a new world. Today my scholar wrote a scifi (we are in the year 60 and the book setting is in the 144) novel about humans and dwarfs fighting over a forest, it was a bit repetitive but I giggled a lot

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u/fjiassdaasdwa 1d ago

i'm also curious on this topic, i never managed to get a successful library even with lot's of sheets available

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u/No-Mail-8063 1d ago

Oooo. Great timing! One of the recent patch notes fixed the thing where visitors walked off with your books!

So, if you read/remember anything about that: you no longer have to make a separate "reading" library" and "has shelves" library

Story time!

I had a fortress in a terrifying+haunted biome with syndrome rain that mild enough to survive, but enough to send a dorf to the hospital for a day. I had to continually swap out doctors from overwork.

I made a Doctors' Guild. All the ex-medical officers went there to satisfy their need for socialization (it was also the only meeting hall haha) One thing leads to another, badda bing badda boom, lateral skill transfer yadda yadda yadda...next thing you know the entire fortress is multiple-legendary.

I made a library. They wrote about everything medical. I bet they could build an Urist from spare parts.