The Complete and All-New Walkthrough for Dwarf Fortress - Part 11: "Fiery Hot Mag-Ma!" (2023)

I have written a bookStarting with the dwarven fortress, available at O'Reilly and Amazon! It covers the current version and takes you from ignorance to confident Dwarf Fortress player.

This is our penultimate tutorial (unless everyone is asking for more). Today we're going to cover building Magma Forges and Smelters and how you can set up some Magma Channels. Then we talk a little bit about build steps and how to remove builds. Continue reading!

¡Mmm! Let's go Maaaa!

By now you should have spotted the magma pool. If you find it on a level below the workshop floor, you'll get a Hot Stone message and stop digging. If you uncover the pool on the workshop level you will see something like this...

What we have here is a magma pool on the right, with an open floor we can walk through and a walkway I dug from the workshop floor to the pool. I didn't know there was a pool there, but it's very helpful to us that there is! Why do I hear you ask? Well, the reason for this is that Magma helps us skip a step in the metal production phase: Coal! We can use the heat from the magma to do the work for us, great!

But how can you use this incredible source of power? Simply! Of course we dig! But before we get carried away, let's talk about it in generalMagma. In addition to being a source of melting power, magma is also extremely dangerous. If a dwarf falls into it, it dies quickly. If a monster falls into it, it will die very quickly. The exception is certain magma creatures such asfire imp. You'll see some of them in our magma pool if you go down a few levels.

Fire imps are pretty dangerous. If your dwarves are wandering around in a pool of magma, rest assured that fire imps will eventually show up and start spitting fire at your dwarves. And yes, your gnomes can catch fire and set other things on fire! Enjoy your precious (exploding) drink! To avoid this I put a gate in the passage to the pool and I suggest you do the same!

Master the FORCE!

With these notes, let's expand our workshop space and plan for magma usage. We'll cover the ins and outs of the reasons once we get started. Then follow:

• Expand your workshop floor with the excavation command so that it takes up most of the space up to the pool. ButNOBreak the pool wall! Try something like this:

• Go up a level when excavating and expand our storage floor as well. We need room to expand and we want to get the bar stock as close as possible to the new ovens we have planned. Something like that maybe?

• When these levels are dug, go to a levelunderyour workshop floor and dig some tunnels like this one a few steps down from your magma tube. Our goal is to eventually create a magma network that previous workshops can mine for their smelting. Like this:

You're going to have to wait a long time now while all the digging is done, so why don't we do something useful and build an awesome drawbridge to make us even safer? That's how it goes…

intermediate bridge construction!

Drawbridges are wonderful dwarven things, and are central focal points of the defenses of many keeps. Drawbridges can block an entrance, maybe close off a direct entrance to your fortress leaving only a very complex, enclosed, winding tunnel, or they can be used to expel magma or flood a room (hold said substances over an entrance) and even ! They can be used to launch baddies into the air! US construction!

• Go to your entrance.
• Define some squares to dig with "d" and "h" for the channel.
• Maybe something like this is suitable. Monsters cannot cross a pit.

• After digging it up, you will end up with a hole with your gnomes trapped inside and out. So let's go ahead and build that bridge!
• Press "b" then "g", you will get a green square. Expand the width of the bridge to cover the width of the room and make it higher and lower than the canal. It doesn't really have to be that big, I just think it looks cooler. This is how mine are distributed.

• DO NOT PRESS ENTERfor now (if so, press "q" on the bridge and "x" to cancel the build). Look at the top of the placement/size window. Do you see the text "Bridge (Retract)"? Here you can change the bridge so that it retracts (almost disappears) in one of the cardinal directions or is raised. Work your way through w, a, s, d, and x and watch the arrow change. I press "x" because I want it to set and seal my dwarves in the fortress.
• Press "Enter" and select the brick you want to build with.
• Your bridge now needs someone trained in architecture to come in and plan it, and then you need masons to lay the stone. It will happen in due course.

In the meantime, you must build a lever to activate your bridge! The lever, when pulled by a dwarf, raises the bridge (after a short delay). Once the lever is built we connect it to the bridge. Both tasks require mechanical dexterity, so make sure you have a mechanically skilled dwarf. Consequences:

• Go back to your dining room and choose a corner for your lever. Don't do what a friend did and place the lever near the bridge and then groan as the dwarf running to pull the lever is knocked over by the attackers (who then storm his fortress and all up upon killing one of his dwarves, who then goes insane and killed most of the immigrants who arrived at his fortress, who were dying of thirst (he was too busy hunting down immigrants to bother drinking)).
• Press "b", "T", select "crowbar", place the crowbar in a corner of your dining room, choosing a mechanism.
• Wait for the leverage to build up.
• When the lever and bridge are built, you need to hook the lever to the bridge.
• Press "q" without a stick.
• Press "a" then "b" to connect the lever to a bridge.
• You only have one bridge at the moment, so you should go straight over it with a big yellow X, like this:

• Press "Enter" and then "Enter" twice to select the two mechanisms for the stick/bridge connection (one on the bridge end, one on the stick end). Since we don't have to worry about magma, choose any motor. If magma were involved, we would like to use the bauxite mechanisms as they are.Test the magma.

Now just sit and wait! When you've done the connection work (confirm this by doing a "q" over the stick), have fun and do "q" then "P" for "stick pull". It may take a few seconds, but hopefully someone will come by and quickly pull the lever, and a few seconds later your bridge should be up. Here is my!

If you look closely you will see that I have a stunned dwarf at the edge of my well. Interestingly, he was crossing the bridge when it lifted and was shot into the air. Luckily he's fine but a little surprised I guess! Pull the lever again and let the dwarves in and out of your fortress again.

...Um, a quick note on that. If your dwarves are under the bridge when it collapses, you will receive this message (click to enlarge):

This is an example ofDwarf Atom Crusherin practice! Oops! Okay, now that the dwarf killing job is done, let's get back to the yummy.Magma!

Preparation of the canal

By now you should have dug up most of it. Once the canal under the workshop layer is complete, we need to flood it with magma. How should we do that? If your first instinct is to send a bulldozer to dig the magma channel, then you are a very stupid dwarf manager! That works, but also quickly brings a roast dwarf. What we're going to do instead is channel fromOveruntil our canal meets our tunnel.

ButBeforeWhen we do that, we have to think about these little devils. Did you know that fire imps and other magma creatures can sneak through your tunnels and then appear in your forges? And that this can be quite painful for everyone involved? There are! Well, now do it! So what should we do about it? Some sort of grid might come in handy, right?

We could use a wall grid (buildable in masons), but let's practice another technique. The last space we dig down to the magma should be smoothed out ("d", "s") and then carved like this:

Let's do something cool from here. Let us denote by "d" the same square of wall as "a", "carved fortification". What then happens is that slots are cut in the wall for your crossbow dwarves to shoot. But even though we don't have any dwarves down here, the holes will let the magma through, but not the monsters! So go "d" and "a" into the same smoothed square.

While you wait, go to a quarry and build a gate. It'll be a boxy thing with an X on it. With this we will prevent magma from leaving our tunnel complex. Why a gate instead of a door? For no particular reason, the gate ensures that nobody tries to open the door, which is handy. The gates can only be opened or closed with levers and pressure plates. Here is my complete complex:

And what now? Of course we have to remove the stone. To do this we need to channel from above, which is relatively safe. Let's do this now:

• When you see your tunnel complex, press "d" then "h".
• Place your X over the first digit to be deleted, like this:

• Now go up one level and you'll see your X near the edge of the magma.
• Press "Enter" and move the cursor three places, press "Enter" again, the end result will look like this:

• Wait, the canal will be excavated and magma will flow into your canals, through your fortification grid (which, by the way, you can't see until you press "k" and place it in place). Unbelievable!

Here are my channels slowly filling with lava. Now we use the HEAT!

Magma Forges for fun and profit

Let's settle for some magma stuff. Pick a square in your magma channels where there is some magma, go up one level and cut down a single channel. Here the spot is ready for cutting. This gives our Magma workshops access to some hot and beautiful stuff.

Now to build:

• "b", then "e" for cast.
• „l“ for „Magma Foundry“.
• Place the dark green X over the magma hole and press "Enter".
• Check out my finished magma casting!

Now to work!

• Build another pair of furnaces.
• Build three magma glass furnaces.
• Build three Magma Forges in the Workshop menu. If you don't have enough anvils for your forges, make more in your existing coal forge. You have two dark green X's, each one can be placed over the hole.
• Here are my 9 almost completed workshops. One hasn't been placed yet because I need to forge a new anvil.

If you are having trouble placing or running a forge/foundry, there may not be enough magma under the building. You may have to wait for the tunnels to fill up further. But once the workshops are complete, you can smell all that ore over and over again and not worry about coal. Better set up your forge with furnace operations, armor and weapon smithing, and no other work! Get all that ore in ingots and shiny armor, weapon, or trap components! Lively!

now and thoseGlass ovens? This is something to research and play with. Glass is a whole different ball game. Don't worry, your twenty-story all-glass tower may come later.

build things

Wait, wouldn't it help if we could get to our new stacks on our stoves without having to go all the way up the central staircase? But how can we do that when we've dug up all this dirt? We have no way of naming one above!

But we can build some. Via menu "b", "C". Constructed stairs and ramps can be placed anywhere as long as they are connected to the ground below or to the side. The same rule applies to floors and walls, as you saw above. So let's go up a few more steps.

• Press "b" and then "C".
• Select the "Top" option.
• Choose a location, press enter, select materials, press enter.
• Here are two staircases to build, one of which is yet to be installed:

The staircase is quickly completed, but not used. Why not? Go one level higher! No stairs down! Luckily we can use the "d", "j" (for "down") as there is dirt between the upper and lower floors and the steps dig in and connect to the lower ladder.

If there was no dirt but space, we would have to build "d", "C", down some stairs.

Now would be a good time to answer a common question about removing steps and walls in the Dwarven Fortress. You have a few options, one of which always works:

• "d", "n" for "delete construction". All items being crafted will flash with a green C. Select as normal and crafted items will break.
• "d", "h" for "channel". If you're over something that's been unearthed and you want to remove it, you can channel the unearthed space. To fill the space you must build a floor on top of it, or you must build something on top of it.
• You can hack through anything built by removing it.

Here it is! Magma! In our final lesson, we'll cover building defenses and finding a new entrance! I hope you had fun, now make some awesome steel items and set some more traps.

Complete Dwarf Fortress Beginner Walkthrough - Part 12: "That's it, guys?!"