Contents
Dwarf Specialization Explanatory Guide for Newbies
Сrеdit gоеs to Fel!
General
You have several ways in the game to handle the specialisation of your dwarves (you used to pretty much need therapist but that’s no longer true thankfully).
For starters, most things are set to “everybody does this” by default, even stuff not listed in the labor menu.
This helps a lot because there are many things you don’t need to specialise, or at the very least not right away, and things still get done.
One Way
One way to specialise dwarves is to asign them to workshops, nobody else will be able to use them (except for strange moods).
This means your brewer, your cook, your weaponsmith and so on can be specialised that way.
For workshops that can do several different things that might not all be the specialisation of the dwarf (forge, craftsdwarf’s workshop or farmer’s workshop for example) you might need to give the work orders from the workshop (there is a tab for it) instead of directly from the work orders menu but it’s not really that big of a deal in most cases.
Other Way
The other way is through the labor menu, especially for things that do not go through a workshop (most of those are set by default too) but you can also make custom ones if you want.
With the examples of workshops, you had to start the work orders from the right workshop when there are several of the same workshop but supposed to handle different specialisations (one forge for armors, one forge for weapons…), you can also do it through custom labors (or even mix both).
In both cases, remember that you can force the dwarf to not do things other than the ones you specially picked for him/her by changing the green pickaxe into a red pickaxe.
You might want to asign them to some things that are set to “everybody does this”, make sure that you set the labor back to “everybody does this” if you do because it changes it to “only selected do this” the first time, which is probably not what you want in some cases like hauling.
Why You Need It
As for why you would want to specialise, most jobs benefit from having a dwarf with a high skill level work on it.
For most things, they work much faster, and for a decent amount it also affects the quality of the resulting item/engraving.
Quality greatly increase the price of the item, and in the case of weapons and armors it also increases their effectiveness.
How to Manage Temples
Having a relatively large temple dedicated to no specific deity is the base.
When specific religions (not just faith to a god) reaches at least 10 members, they will petition for a temple of a high enough value specifically for them.
The reward is the ability to appoint a religious leader for that religion in your fort, which increases the positive thoughts the members get from praying.
Of course you can make temples for everything if you want but the impact isn’t that big and it takes a lot of work and space, so it’s really up to you if you really want those or not.
Final Tips
Don’t overwork your dwarves.
That’s probably one of the most common issue many people have, dwarves that work all around the clock because there are too many things to be done.
It leads to a bunch of things being left undone for long periods of time and many dwarves can become stressed because of it.
Also bear in mind, regarding the point about unhappy Dwarves, that some have traits that make them easily stressed, so past a certain point are basically a lost cause in terms of stress recovery; they’re destined to spiral into depression, insanity or constant tantrums. Better to banish them, or have them meet an unfortunate accident with a lava trap before they kill your fort with a tantrum spiral, or upset everyone else by starving to death in the tavern.
Be the first to comment