Dwarf Fortress

[Dorundain]

Do any of you folks play Dwarf Fortress?

If you haven't heard of it, check it out (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/).

Yes, ASCII graphics. Get over it. You can build anti-elf magma-flood chambers. What more do you want?

:thumb:

[Atnas]

Wait, what, who?

[Riddle]

Wow! this looks really good. I'm going to sign up now!

Can't wait.

[Dorundain]

http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=001057&p=

That thread makes a pretty good case for the game. A better case than the screenshots page.

[Zanzibar]

http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=11&t=001057&p=

That thread makes a pretty good case for the game. A better case than the screenshots page.
Well shit, I'm convinced!

[Dorundain]

Sigh.

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2006/09/dwarf-fortress.html

There's a review of the game.

I had assumed that I would find a contingent of enthusiasts here already, if not because you're a clan of dwarves, for crying out loud, then because you have a reasonably high concentration of intelligent folks.

If, by chance, one of you philistines decides to give it a try, http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net has some helpful information, including a pretty good tutorial (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Indecisive%27s_illustrated_fortress_mode_tutorial).

[Surly]

I played it once, around the same time I downloaded a bunch of weird games like Dooncat... maybe I should give it another shot. I just kind of opened it and tried to stumble my way into it. It didn't go very well, a tutorial should help.

[Atnas]

I'm sorry, but my eyes are bleeding too much right now in order for me to try out a new game.

[Spades]

I a volunteer myself to be one of your Fortress dwarves, Surly!

Don't get me killed!

[stalwart]

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/screens/night.PNG

i'm sold. let's do it.

[Gallant Justice]

I tried it and failed horribly, maybe i should try reading the tutorial first and give it another go...

[Garn]

I tried it and failed horribly, maybe i should try reading the tutorial first and give it another go...

You'll fail anyway. It's just normal in the game. Just consider this: You can't win the game. You can just loose it. You should see any defeat in Dwarf Fortress as a worthy conclusion of a small part of history in the game world.

[Gallant Justice]

Haha, so my record of surviving 3 winters was not a failure but a grand success?

[Garn]

3 winters indeed isn't bad. Especially if you really never looked at the tutorial.

[Gallant Justice]

Nope, just went in blind. Pretty much like im trying now, tutorial is a long and dry read. Hopefully dwarves can live off of milk and cheese.

[Garn]

If you just need a few specific infos you could try http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com

[Gallant Justice]

Thanks, some things i have read seem to suggest i can dig down into a prairie to have sorta underground dirt dwarves. Any tips on how to go about that?

[Garn]

You can just dig down ramps or stairs into the ground with the designations menu. Check the wiki for detailed instructions, I'm too lazy to explain that now.

You know you can switch levels in the z-axis? Up and down? Because it took me hours to figure that out.

[Gallant Justice]

No I didn't know that, hows that done?

[Garn]

No I didn't know that, hows that done?

Check the controls in the options menu, I have mine changed since the standard settings don't work out very well with my German keyboard layout.

Heh, now, with that knowledge, you will start to see and experience how truly ingenious the game is. And you'll stop wondering what "open space" is supposed to be - that just means the ground level is lower than your view.

[Gallant Justice]

Thanks for the tip, i may fair better this way. Still haven't figured the Z-axis, but i cant find the options menu either, which just means i am severely mentally retarded ill keep poking around till i got it.

[Snowed]

Heck, I'll try it, now that i have my secksy black eye :). Ill be on shortly :)

[Gallant Justice]

Got it, doing fairly well. Having trouble getting my Grower to grow anything though, hes a lazy bastage. Should of gone with a hunter.

[Gallant Justice]

Or animal husbandry.

[Gallant Justice]

Apparently mining into magma is a bad idea.

[Surly]

This game is fucking hard. I tried to irrigate an underground farming facility and wound up flooding the whole damn thing. Then, 5 years in, after building a pretty decent military and weathering 3 goblin attacks, the goblins came back again and my whole military decided to throw a party during the attack while my guard captain jumped down a well and broke his neck.

[Gallant Justice]

MY entire military seemed to think drowning is the solution to all military patrols.

[Surly]

Well, I finally got my military well equipped and they decided to kill each other by sparring until they sliced each others' arms off and shit. My most experienced and best performing soldier is an Ultra-Mighty wrestler with no arms.

He still kicks a lot of goblin ass though. I have no idea how. His legs must be ripped.

[Dorundain]

Well, I finally got my military well equipped and they decided to kill each other by sparring until they sliced each others' arms off and shit. My most experienced and best performing soldier is an Ultra-Mighty wrestler with no arms.

He still kicks a lot of goblin ass though. I have no idea how. His legs must be ripped.

Hah. I know that feeling.

I eventually started rotating out "sparring" weapons (i.e., silver, or wood, if you can get them from the elbsies - these do 50% damage) with my actual battle weapons. (i.e., steel - these do 125% damage) And every soldier gets steel platemail. Everyone.

A few notes about the military - first, wrestling skill determines a dwarf's dodging ability. So, a lot of folks set their military all to unarmed combat for a while before they hand out weapons. If a dwarf lives to become "proficient" or "adept" as a wrestler, he's less likely to be hit, and therefore less likely to be killed, when he's sparring with a real weapon.

Second, marksdwarves - which are arguably the most important part of your military - use "hammer" skill if they get into melee, presumably to bash the enemy in the head with the crossbow. I try to cross-train my marksdwarves in hammering, once I've gotten them to a decent level of marksdwarfship.

My third note is that dwarves won't spar if they get a "nervous injury" - any damage to the upper or lower spine or to the brain. Even the lightest wound. Since most of their improvement comes from sparring, this kinda puts the kibosh on their careers.

Lastly, you can set your squads to carry food and water, if you make them waterskins and backpacks. This means they waste less time when they're supposed to be on-duty. Doesn't help much with the damned parties, but hey, a dwarf needs his festivities, apparently.

[Surly]

How do you make them use practice weapons? I started doing that, but the only way I can get it to work is to lock all the good weapons in a store room and tell them to equip no weapons while I open up the practice weapon room. It's a huge pain in the ass.

Also, yeah, I generally train them to be competent wrestlers and then start letting them use weapons. If they take nervous damage, I make them marksdwarves. The trouble is my Ultra-Mighty wrestler, he breaks people's arms when he's sparring regardless, so I have to decommission him unless there's an attack. I also now have an Ultra-Mighty macedwarf, but his mace skill sucks because even with shitty wooden maces he obliterates people during sparring sessions... it sucks, he can't really improve without real combat but in real combat he performs rather poorly unless he gets off a lucky hit that sends his enemy flying across the screen.

Oh, but I did have a funny thing happen recently. I turned a legendary dwarf into a recruit after his artifact had been destroyed by some goblins, which made him enraged, and he immediately went outside to face their entire group with a hammer I made him get. he went into a "martial trance" while also being "enraged" and creamed their entire raiding party by himself without taking any damage, despite having no skill in fighting at all.

[Dorundain]

I make a point of really limiting the amount of weapons and armor I've got on hand. From the stocks screen (Z >> Stocks), if you scroll down to weapons, you can quickly (f)orbid/(d)ump the weapons you don't want them to use, and (c)laim the weapons you do. It's a pain, but it's worth it.

But yeah, martial trances *rule*, especially with a mace/hammer dwarf. You'll have enemies flying all over the map. :)

[Surly]

What's the trigger for it? They only seem to do it when they are hopelessly outnumbered.

[Dorundain]

Yeah, pretty much. I haven't found a reliable trigger other than that. It helps if the dwarf has combat skill. I had a legendary speardwarf go apeshit on some axegoblins, and they didn't have a chance. The fight was over in (literally) about 2 seconds.

[Surly]

I finally found a good way to train my really beefy fighters. I just set up a fuckload of cage traps and snatch up about a dozen goblins every time they attack, and then I put them in a locked room in cages that are linked to levers. Then I have my hard ass dwarves go in there with weapons and let the captives loose.

I wonder if it helps in training for the enemy to be armed. Do you know? If not, I should probably disarm them and just make it a slaughter.

[Spinewire]

you should have a magma flood switch for cleaning up the mess

[Surly]

My death room is really close to magma, I should... indeed.