Engravning the whole room

[Tophe]

Are there any drawbacks to engraving a whole room, floor and walls? I'm doing that to raise value of my guild halls. Seems easy and all the dwarfs are very eager to join in, dropping everything they have to be part of the engraving.

But are there any drawbacks of having the whole floor covered?

[Rainbow Jeremy]

Higher value fort attracts megabeasts etc. but other than that I don't think so

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

As long as it's not a personal room (assigned office/bedroom), no. If it's a personal room, then the occupant may hate some of the engravings because of what they depict, making the act of engraving those specific engravings largely pointless. Even then, that's minor.

[Rainbow Jeremy]

Most dwarven citizens love sleeping in rooms that have carvings depicting their untimely demise all over the walls.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Tophe:

But are there any drawbacks of having the whole floor covered?

Yeah, it looks terrible.

[McFuzz]

You should probably assign engraving to a handful of skilled individuals, because in classic at least, engravings had a quality and value, and can be masterpieces.

Although that way you'll just end up with 1000 pictures from the same guy from his small pool of knowledge and likes - probably all of him eating cheese.

[Stafford's Bees]

One thing to watch out for is that you can make the engraver angry if you have to knock down a masterwork engraved wall.

[Boomshanka]

I dont engrave whole rooms or floors, just doesnt make sense to me, a few here and there in specific places is more my gig. Not sure about this at all but i also here it may help drag your Fps down if you have it all over the place, no clue if thats true at all.

[ahueonao]

If you're afraid of ending up with a picture that some dwarves will dislike, it's possible to customize what you want the engraving to depict (click on the assigned tile before a dwarf gets to it), but your options will be a bit limited compared to letting the engraver decide (since the engraver can depict historic events from your fort and from their own memories, which you can't find in the custom engraving menu). Still, custom engravings can be a good option if it's a personal bedroom (pick something from the owner's preferences) or a temple (pick the deity it's dedicated to). You can save a certain motif with a custom name if you want to repeat it a lot (a personal favorite is a dwarf laughing and striking a victory pose over a crying elf in fetal position). I'm not sure if custom engravings can reach higher qualities, though.

[Rainbow Jeremy]

One of my forts had a really depressed dwarf child who lost a sibling and all that pulled them out of their spiral was a room full of masterfully depicted waddling little penguins they adore in statue and engraving form. Ah and then the undead killed everyone.

[Turkish Hair Graft]

The only downside is now my dwarves are walking all over the artwork and that bothers me.

[Boomshanka]

It states on the wiki if you do suffer from Fps issues as your fort gets bigger, engravings is one of the issues that effects that. So just keep that in mind if your engraving everything.

[TyCobb]

Originally posted by AlP:

Originally posted by Tophe:

But are there any drawbacks of having the whole floor covered?

Yeah, it looks terrible.

Can you not toggle them on/off anymore? They look awful in ASCII because your walls become Dwarf heads and other symbols, but you can choose to hide them in the old version. Is that not present anymore?

[Boomshanka]

Originally posted by TyCobb:

Originally posted by AlP:

Yeah, it looks terrible.

Can you not toggle them on/off anymore? They look awful in ASCII because your walls become Dwarf heads and other symbols, but you can choose to hide them in the old version. Is that not present anymore?

there is an " engravings start obscure" Yes/no....but im not sure what it does

[TyCobb]

Originally posted by Boomshanka:

Originally posted by TyCobb:

Can you not toggle them on/off anymore? They look awful in ASCII because your walls become Dwarf heads and other symbols, but you can choose to hide them in the old version. Is that not present anymore?

there is an " engravings start obscure" Yes/no....but im not sure what it does

Makes them not show by default. I believe that only works for new engravings and not existing ones.

[Darius Eldritch]

Originally posted by TyCobb:

Originally posted by Boomshanka:

there is an " engravings start obscure" Yes/no....but im not sure what it does

Makes them not show by default. I believe that only works for new engravings and not existing ones.

there used to be an option in the designation section
not sure if it's there in the steam version tho