Dwarf Fortress: What To Do When Dwarves Stop Working (Steam Edition)

Troubleshooting your fortress for labor issues.

Image by DALL-E

Have your dwarves seemed just to stop working for no apparent reason? This guide will teach you different possible solutions to your labor shortage issues. Think of it as troubleshooting your fortress.

1. CHECK YOUR BURROWS

The first thing most people will tell you is to check your burrows. If you don’t know where the burrows icon is, chances are you have not set up any burrows. Burrows are the dwarf equivalent of an animal/pen pasture.

The burrows menu can be seen in the middle.

They’re great for forcing a job to be done in one area, such as making all your miners gather in one place to complete a mining project. You can pause and un-pause the burrow, too, which is excellent. For example, are your dwarves in need of merrymaking? Burrow the whole fortress population in your local tavern. Mandatory fun!

The Children’s Burrow is currently unpaused, meaning the assigned child dwarfs will stay within that burrow. The Tavern burrow is currently UNpaused which means dwarfs will not stay in that burrow right now.

My tavern wasn’t getting visitors until I gathered my dwarves in my tavern, and when I finally got a visitor. Suddenly, I started getting more visitors; word of mouth was the most powerful advertisement. Burrows are also great for panic rooms during a siege; hide the children! All the children will rush to the burrow after completing their current task, whether storing an item or just playing. Just be aware of what burrows are where and who is assigned so that you don’t come up with labor issues or, even worse, a dwarf dying from dehydration or hunger.

2. CHECK LABOR ASSIGNMENTS

Hit the (y) key to check your labor assignments, and make sure that some of your dwarves aren’t set to do only one task only full-time. The box featuring the hammer icon turns red when you check it. This means this particular dwarf will only do tasks and labor in his or her assigned wheelhouse. Make sure you toggle these on and off as need be.

The miners with a red box will only mine, this means they will not participate in something like say hauling goods even if that labor is set to “everybody does this”.

3. MISSING EQUIPMENT AND MISMATCHED EQUIPMENT

If your miners or woodcutters need to do their job, it might be because they have lost their pickaxe or battle-axe. To fix this issue, check your weapons count by clicking the Stocks button and scrolling to the “weapons” section. If a tool is lost, you need to get a new one.

If a tool is inaccessible, the dwarf cannot reach it. In such cases, you can either make the dwarf who already has the axe a woodcutter until you can craft another battle-axe or obtain one from a trader. You can also request more battle axes or mining picks from dwarven traders when they come around.

Having only one woodcutter at a time is recommended because having more than one can result in injury or even death. Equipment mismatch can keep dwarves from doing mandatory labors of mining and woodcutting; hence, you need to ensure that their military weapon matches their professional weapons.

Hunters need bows; therefore, assign them to archer squads in your military so they don’t have to switch gear on or off military duty. Similarly, ensure that woodcutters are not part of archer squads to prevent equipment mismatches.

Miners are best kept out of the military to avoid switching between a pick and a spear. They are essential for most dwarven economies and serve as the backbone of the community.

4. THE DWARF’S WORK ANIMAL IS CAGED, PASTURED, OR CHAINED

I will rewrite the text to make it clearer.

Remember the elephant you trained to be a war elephant? Well, it turns out that the dwarf needs that animal to get any work done. I found this out the hard way when a squad I sent out on a raid didn’t return completely.

It was because I had pinned up all of the animals in an attempt to clean things up and increase my FPS. This was a bad move because if you pen up all the pets, including those trained to hunt or fight, your dwarves will not return until the animal is free to come to the dwarf as soon as they come home.

If desired, the whistle icon selects a specific trainer, and the following two icons decide if the animal will be trained in lethality or stealth. Note: the trainer does not have to be the owner. After the animal is trained, it can be manually assigned an owner, unlike non-work animals like cats and chickens, which must be adopted by a dwarf or adopt the dwarf themselves.

If you have a trained work animal, it is important to provide them with enough freedom to move around so that it can always work with its owner. In some cases, the owner may only be able to work or return home from a mission once the animal can perform the following task they have planned after the mission.

It’s important to note that keeping regular pets in pens will not affect the workflow of their dwarf owner. For example, if you have a pet horse, you don’t have to keep it inside the house. Pasture animals require grass to graze on, but pets like cats and dogs don’t need a food supply.

5. YOUR DWARVES ARE PISSED

Hitting the (u) key or clicking the dwarf head icon on the bottom left of your screen will bring up the citizen information menu where you can sort your dwarves by how painful their life is currently.

Do you like to do stuff when you’re having a bad day? The dwarves don’t. If your dwarves have unmet needs, from not being able to pray to their deities, low food, and drink, or the ultimate traumatic experience of being caught in the rain, then chances are they just aren’t feeling it.

Remember, Dwarf Fortress is more like an ant farm than a game. You can only give the orders. You can’t enforce them. If you want to know what’s going on, click the (u) key to bring up your citizen information menu. Sort the dwarves by mood by clicking the arrow above the green and red smiley-frown faces.

Pick a dwarf with a pissed-off red face and look at their profile to see their unmet needs. After that, do your best to fulfill them. Pissed-off dwarves won’t stop working entirely, but you will notice a slowdown and lack of hustle.

As I mentioned before, some dwarves, especially children, are just unpleasable. You can give all the children six months of chore-free playtime and they will still be in a bad mood. Take a look at the child below?

Notice in the box where the adult dwarf’s unmet needs are empty? Go figure; one thing I know is don’t bother trying to play on Eral’s emotions. She can’t EVEN today!

To see the children’s chores list, look at the tabs on tabs on tabs screenshot below. I would tell you how to get there, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

Labor> Standing orders > Chores to set whether children work, only do certain chores, or don’t do chores at all. Look through these other “standing order” sub-tabs within the labor menu to ensure you didn’t turn something big off, such as hauling food or water.

Dwarves’ moods are known to be volatile and can change very quickly. While some dwarves may always appear to be in a good mood, others may seem to be in a bad mood constantly. However, it’s essential to remember that their moods are affected by many factors and may fluctuate throughout the day. If they are well-fed and hydrated, their mood will likely improve eventually.

Dwarves can be easily pleased by toys for children, beautiful statues, well-crafted furniture, and waterfalls. They especially love waterfalls, but they dislike rain for reasons unknown. Like humans, dwarves also have a special bond with their pets, and being around them can improve their mood significantly.

6. CLEAR OUT ALL TASK, LABOR, AND WORKSHOP ASSIGNMENTS FOR A CLEAN SLATE

Sometimes, starting fresh and clearing out all labor assignments can solve many issues in Dwarf Fortress. By assigning all labors to green, you can allow your dwarves to do anything they want, which can clear up any sudden labor halts.

The labor system has been reworked for the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress to reduce and allow for more micromanagement. This means you can sit back and enjoy the story while your fortress’s needs constantly change with each passing season.

The key is to change your labor based on your current projects. However, it’s important to remember that it’s best to let dwarves be dwarves and allow them to do what they are most naturally drawn to. Over-managing your dwarves can make them poor workers, so it’s essential to avoid it.

To fix any labor halts, go to your task menu using (t) and cancel all your construction jobs and other jobs that seem not to be getting done. This may free up many materials you have reserved for those jobs. Although you’ll have to redo all the walls and floors later, fixing the labor halt is worth it. What’s the point of a construction plan if it’s not getting done? You’ll pick a better material the second time around anyway.

7. HAUL SO HARD MOTHER-MINERS WANNA FINE YOU

Allowing the dwarfs to engage in some housekeeping collectively can often clear any blockages that may hinder construction jobs. This includes furniture placement, while furniture removal and deconstruction are considered mining.

After a big battle, it is a good strategy to allow the dwarves to clean up the area, especially if there are a lot of dead goblins or other creatures lying around. Leaving corpses around can make the dwarves uncomfortable, and even worse, the corpse of a beloved dwarf can cause some dwarves to become psychologically damaged. Remember that dwarves are fully simulated beings with moods and memories, which can lead to some pretty traumatized dwarves.

8. OUTDATED TRAFFIC ROUTES ARE SLOWING WORK

If you have set any traffic zones in the earlier stage of the game you need to keep them in mind; they might be interfering with the movement inside your fortress. This can happen if you have added new tunnels, roads, and passages after setting the traffic routes.

To clear the high and low-traffic areas, use the paintbrush to change their traffic settings to “normal”. If you have expanded your fortress with more hallways or drawbridges, your old traffic plan may no longer be effective. It is recommended that paths that are three or more blocks wide be designated as high-traffic routes.

Consider placing low-traffic paths on smaller hallways, but make sure there is an alternative route to the destination. It’s best to leave everything on “normal traffic” if you’re uncertain. Another helpful tip is to designate low-traffic paths over water zones that are prone to freezing during winter. This prevents dwarves from walking on ice that may thaw unexpectedly.

A high-traffic area can be removed simply by painting over it with the middle “>>” or “normal” traffic button. It will just look like regular ground.

9. CHECK YOUR CANCELLATION NOTICES AND UNDERSTAND THEM

Cancellation notifications are like X-rays that help you diagnose the problem. You’re the doctor, so learn what causes cancellations.

Some dwarves just needed a drink, some dwarves had stuff lying where they were supposed to build that needed to be hauled off first, and the children were burrowed and couldn’t reach the goods to haul.

If construction is not being completed, and the game has halted, the cancellation menu will provide you with the reason why. This could be due to something as minor as a dwarf taking a break or something more significant, like an item blocking the construction site. To resume the halted task, open your task menu by pressing the (t) key and un-pause the task after resolving the issue or clearing up the area.

If an item is obstructing the site, such as a piece of stone, you should reassign dwarves to hauling tasks. You can either select a group of dwarves or use the “all hands on deck” command to make sure the job gets done.

It’s worth noting that canceling work orders, tasks, or workshops can affect the dwarves’ ability to perform other activities. If dwarves are too busy trying to fertilize a field without potash and are repeatedly canceling and reattempting the task, they won’t be able to move items required to complete other jobs. Therefore, you need to manually move these items to build a wall or place a bed.

10. THE HAIL MARY — RETIRING/UNRETIRING YOUR FORTRESS

To retire a fortress in Dwarf Fortress, you need to open the main menu where you usually save your game or change options. There, you will find a button labelled “Retire Fortress”. Clicking on this button will allow you to leave your current fortress as an active site while you read about your current world in Legends mode or start a new fort. This means that your current fort will be left to the whims of fate until you decide to unretire it.

It’s okay to retire your fortress and come right back in whether to peek at your world’s Legends mode or to try and fix weird bugs that cause labor issues.

Retiring and unretiring your fortress can sometimes resolve labor issues and bugs that appear in the game. If you retire and unretire your fortress quickly without any delay, there won’t be any time passing or unexpected surprises, and it will be just as you left it before.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

Remember this simple tip: When everything else fails, just let your citizens do whatever they want and things will eventually fall into place. Even if it doesn’t happen immediately, give it time and they will eventually get it done.

Remember that you’re merely a subtle voice in their head that suggests things to them. You’re not there to control them. The world is vast, and these dwarves are doing their best. Accept them for who they are because, at the end of the day, they’re your dwarves, and nobody is perfect.

Be grateful that you get to watch them work, and don’t get upset if they seem to be off-task sometimes. Chances are, you’re also getting sidetracked in your own life while reading this.

Good luck and have !!FUN!!

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