Dwarf Fortress

[RainRaven]

hxxp://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/


This is a rogue-like that combines the elements of a rogue game with a vast expansion of a game like the Sims. While it has been difficult for me to get into it due to the nature of the game with school starting I figured many others here would enjoy it. Take your kingdoms to glory.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I've been following a thread over at Octopus Overlords about this game. It looks like a fun game. Looks like it's perfect for doing a dynasty as well. I'm hoping to give it a try soon.

[KWhit]

Those graphics are the bomb!



Here's your gameworld:


http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/screens/world_map1.PNG

[Shkspr]

Her: What are you playing?

Me: It's called Dwarf Fortress. Folks online are saying it could be the game of the year.

Her: What year? 1982?

[Drake]

Can you post a bigger picture? That one's not very clear.

[KWhit]

Can you post a bigger picture? That one's not very clear.

Don't hate the playa - hate the game.

[Fouts]

Tried it, learning curve too high for me.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I've been messing with the game for a little bit this evening. I worked through an intro tutorial for an hour and or so and was completely mystified/confused. Then it kind of clicked a bit, and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm excited to play more tomorrow. It looks amazingly deep.

I think I'm going to do a very short dynasty on this (very short, as in "I have no clue what I'm doing so we're all going to die very quickly"). We'll need a handful of volunteers. I'll likely start this tomorrow, so if you're interested, watch for the official post.

[Mustang]

I think I see my house.

[Peregrine]

Remember, GB, the entire dynasty must be written out in ASCII art.

[Groundhog]

Man, just started playing this, and I'll be damned if I can figure out what to do... looks VERY deep, so hopefully I manage to get my head around cuz I have a feeling that I'd enjoy this game a whole heap.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Man, just started playing this, and I'll be damned if I can figure out what to do... looks VERY deep, so hopefully I manage to get my head around cuz I have a feeling that I'd enjoy this game a whole heap.

I couldn't have gotten anywhere without the following tutorial:
hxxp://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2021624

Not that I'm getting anywhere, but my dwarves would have just stood around until they died if it weren't for this. Now at least they can be doing something when they die.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Dola...

Remember, GB, the entire dynasty must be written out in ASCII art.

Har! You trying to kill me? My brain would explode! :)

[sachmo71]

started reading the instructions...was too tired. but it holds promise, to be sure.

[Neon_Chaos]

read the manual, the wiki and the forums. took me 3 hours to actually start a game confidently enough. jesus christ. this game is good. :)

[Bee]

The game looks fun, but the learning curve is pretty extreme. I think it'll have to be something I try when I have a few days to spend in front of the computer undisturbed....yeah right.

[JAG]

"A dynamic weather model tracks wind, humidity and air masses to create fronts, clouds, rain storms and blizzards."

Wow.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Yeah, the detail in the game is simply amazing.

I can't figure out how to designate things to be moved around, like getting the dwarves to move tables and chairs into a particular room, or getting food into barrels, etc.

[path12]

I've followed a thread about this at Quarter to Three. Looks interesting, but I think my next amazingly difficult learning curve game will be Dom 3. I keep getting sucked in and thoroughly confused. Sigh.

[JAG]

Yeah, the detail in the game is simply amazing.

I can't figure out how to designate things to be moved around, like getting the dwarves to move tables and chairs into a particular room, or getting food into barrels, etc.

Don't know if this helps answer part of your Q, but I noticed this in the FAQ:

How do I place barrels/bins?
You don't, dwarves will get them automatically and place them on the stockpiles that need it.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Don't know if this helps answer part of your Q, but I noticed this in the FAQ:

How do I place barrels/bins?
You don't, dwarves will get them automatically and place them on the stockpiles that need it.

Ah, great! Thanks. That is very helpful.

I figured out how to move beds and tables and stuff as well. You use the [b] Site a Building command, choose the item off the list, then move the cursor to where you want to place the item. A dwarf should come by shortly and get the job done for you.

[Peregrine]

A game developer who posts on some other forums wrote up a sort of review and design practices of the game, pretty interesting:


Let me state up front that I'm writing about a game you've never heard of, and which you won't want to play. My purpose here is to talk about game design, so if a dissection of a game with an eye toward general principles doesn't interest you, you'll avoid some boredom if you move on.

Dwarf Fortress is a freeware game that could really have been called "Moria," for more reasons than one. It's an economic simulation that demonstrates what Dungeon Keeper was originally intended to be, and what it could have been if the designers had possessed any talent. You start with 7 dwarves (naturally 7!) some food, and some basic equipment by a mountainside. You then start tunneling into the mountain, carving out rooms and workshops for your dwarves, and looking for valuable ore. You have threats from without, but the really serious threats come from delving too deep.

Aside from the theme, the other reason it could have been called "Moria" was that a long time ago, there was a roguelike game called Moria. Like Moria and every other roguelike game except Diablo, Dwarf Fortress uses ASCII characters for graphics. Granted, they're in color, but you're still looking at a bunch of d's and f's and O's and trying to make sense of them. The developer does have an alternate character set available which makes some of the objects (notably beds and chairs) into something recognizable.

Dwarf Fortress demonstrates a couple of principles of game development that get mentioned from time to time but not fully appreciated. First, programmer time is a limited resource. The less time spent on things like user interface, the more time is available for code that actually runs the game. Second, programming modern user interface is incredibly time consuming. Dwarf Fortress was written by a couple of guys in their spare time in about a year, yet the core game is richer and more complex than most citybuilding games.

It's certainly lightyears ahead of the simplistic and unsatisfying internal dynamics of Dungeon Keeper, and the game has a lot of similarities to what Dungeon Keeper was supposed to be. Like DK, you tunnel all of your rooms out of the rock, you have to fight off occasional incursions of enemies, and you can build traps to defend your corridors. Unlike DK, the game is primarily about juggling all the stuff you have to do when you're not fighting things.

The game is primarily about making things, and there are a lot of things to make. There are 26 types of workshop, from Ashery to Wood Furnace, some of which produce just one or two items, some of which produce dozens of different items. For example, suppose you want to build a trap. Start by mining out some copper ore and malachite ore. Chop down some trees for wood. Use a Wood Furnace to convert the wood to charcoal fuel for your smelter and forge. Use a Smelter to convert the charcoal, copper ore and malachite ore into copper bars. Now use a Metalsmith Forge to forge a Copper Giant Axe Blade or Large Serrated Disk from the copper bars and charcoal. Use a Mechanic's Workshop to convert some of the vast amount of waste rock you generated by carving into the mountain into Stone Mechanisms. Finally, place the trap where you want it, which consumes the giant axe blade and the stone mechanisms.

Even food production is complex. The basic mechanism is to find an underground river, carve out a room next to it for a field, and then flood that room. When you drain out the water, the room is full of mud, which acts as soil for your crops. To get this to work, you have to make stone floodgates with a Mason's Workshop, a stone lever, and stone mechanisms to link the lever to the floodgates. You also need a stone door sealing the room so the rest of your underground fortress doesn't get flooded. You then add the "pull lever" task to the lever, wait until the room is flooded, and then add the "pull lever" task again so the water will drain.

Beyond the basics of planting crops, you can also fertilize the soil with potash. Making potash involves creating ash from wood with a Wood Furnace, creating lye from the ash with an Ashery, a bucket, and wooden barrel to store the lye, and then converting the lye to potash with the Ashery and more ash.

There's a lot of stuff to be done, and you have no direct control over your dwarves to do it. Rather, you set up tasks like "dig out this section," "pull this lever," or "make this item," and wait for some dwarf to decide to do it. You can choose which dwarf indirectly, because you can edit the list of tasks (which is about 50 items long) each dwarf will do. For example, by default all dwarves have the "haul" tasks like "haul food" or "haul stone" enabled, but you can make things a bit more efficient if your miner has those tasks turned off. Any idle dwarves that don't have anything better to do will pick up the rock and ore he leaves behind and haul it to the storage areas you designate.

As an added layer, dwarves have skills in 52 different areas. As they perform tasks, they gain experience and skill in that area. It seems that most tasks can be done with no skill at all, but a skilled dwarf will do them faster, and produce higher-quality results.

At root the game is about time management, since there's no cost to doing anything except labor. Provided you have the materials, of course, and obtaining the materials requires labor. And the pressure to do things right is pretty severe, since most new players end up starving all their dwarves the first winter. The designer clearly expects you to screw up horribly several times, since one of the intro screens has the motto "losing is fun!"

The entire game is an example of throwing a lot of complexity and simulation into a design, and hoping the result is fun. And for the most part, it really does work. The designer has managed to avoid the pitfall of too much interdependency, so there's a definite progression to what you build. You can build an awful lot from just the raw rock you get from tunneling, and you always have a huge surplus of basic rock. Making metal and glass items is very complex, but initially you can make enough trade goods for the caravans just by crafting things out of light stone and dark stone. If hunting weren't so buggy right now, you wouldn't have to leap right into the complexities of farming, either.

What keeps me from recommending this to the seriously hardcore players here who can stomach ASCII graphics are the positive feedback loops, the steep learning curve, and the interface issues.

The designer fell into a classic pitfall that seat-of-the-pants, simulation based designs often fall prey to, which is positive feedback. Each dwarf has a happiness level, which is influenced by a variety of factors, like food quality and living conditions. If he becomes unhappy enough, he throws a tantrum and does nothing for a while. If he becomes really unhappy he goes on a berserk killing spree.

The problem with this is that if things are already going badly for some reason, the tantrums make things worse. For example, if he's unhappy because he's starving, and you send him out to gather food, the tantrum prevents him from gathering the food he needs to make him happy. I had a dwarf who was badly wounded by a lizardman, and while he was resting and healing in his room, he quickly fell into deep depression because he wasn't doing anything that would make him happy, and his wounded leg was making him unhappy. Pretty soon he was constantly throwing tantrums, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Eventually he went berserk and tried to kill the rest of the dwarves.

If things are going badly all around because you're short on food, this mechanism guarantees total failure instead of a more satisfying difficult survival. The dwarves stop doing what's needed to get by, and pretty soon they all start killing each other.

With games that involve collapsing states, you want the more basic states to be increasingly stable. Rather than a mechanism that makes things worse when things go bad, you want one that makes things better. For example, perhaps the dwarves could all go hunt for food when it becomes scarce, forgoing the luxuries of craftmaking.

The learning curve is steep because simple information is often missing. For example, I had a hard time figuring out how to fertilize my crops, because I had no idea which of the 20+ workshops produced potash. Most action failures give an error message (i.e. "make potash canceled, no lye available") but many are missing a word or two that would make corrective action much clearer.

For some bizarre reason, the game has no mouse support. Perhaps they wanted to completely recapture the feel of PC games circa 1980, but the presence of ASCII graphics really doesn't excuse not using this powerful pointing device.

Even taking the ASCII graphics and the direction-key driven interface, this game wins some awards for bad interface design. Sometimes scrolling through item lists involves the arrow keys, and sometimes the +/- keys, and there's no real consistency as to which. There's an online manual, but it always starts you with at the contents page, and hunting through it for the information you need can be a real trial. There are three different modes (building order mode, general viewing mode, unit viewing mode) for scrolling around the map, when there could be a single mode which allowed you to view units, items, and room orders.

There's an overview screen which tells you how many dwarves you have and how much total food you have, but there's no way to get an overall inventory. So you have no idea how many Plump Helmet seeds you have, how many Pig Tail seeds, how much copper ore you have, or how many bars of silver. If you want to know, you have to view each barrel or bin individually and count.

The trade screen is particularly offensive. When the caravan arrives, you can move items to the trade depot and swap them for caravan goods. You do this by marking one or more items they have, marking one or more items you have, and hitting "t." The trade will either be accepted or rejected. You have no idea what the value of anything is, so make a trade is a trail-and-error process where you mark more and more things and hit "t" repeatedly until you succeed. What's worse, if you have a pile of minted copper or silver coins, you can only mark the entire pile for trade, not just some of them.

The game suffers from a technical issue I haven't thought about since 1978, which is keyboard bounce. If you choose to A)dd a task to the Mason's Workshop, 70% of the time you end up adding an A)rmor Stand, since the game read one A press as two. Tasks that begin with C (like Charcoal) are particularly bad, because often you end up C)ancelling them immediately.

If you really want to suffer through this anyway in order to see the interesting parts of the game, I suggest you start at the online Wiki.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

This has the links at the bottom of the page to the download page, the official forums, and two threads with vital advice on getting started. It's also chock full of basic information that isn't clear in the game, like how farming works.

[sachmo71]

nice review, but im a bit afraid of the bugs. i'd hate to take the time learning only to get frusterated later in teh game

[WSUCougar]

I think I see my house.
I actually laughed at this.

[Godzilla Blitz]

nice review, but im a bit afraid of the bugs. i'd hate to take the time learning only to get frusterated later in teh game

From what I know about the game already, I don't think the above reviewer played the game much. His criticisms are valid, but he seems to say that the interface/learning curve aren't worth overcoming to get at the game. But from his comments about the gameplay, it sounds like he didn't get far into it.

From what I can tell, the fun and complexity of the game overwhelm these negative aspects. I believe he's also wrong about the collapsing state argument. For example, if I'm not mistaken, you can set your dwarves to go hunt when they're hungry and take them off their crafting tasks. But part of the game is anticipating needs before you're starving. If you run out of food, you will starve, so take steps to get food before you run out of food. There are lots of things you can do before you run out of food.

I haven't found it buggy, either. The adventure mode is reportedly buggy, but the dwarf fortress mode seems stable. There are a few known bugs, but otherwise, it seems completely playable in its existing state.

My opinion might change as I play more, but right now I'm fascinated by the things you can do and the richness of the gameplay.

[Groundhog]

I couldn't have gotten anywhere without the following tutorial:
hxxp://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2021624

Not that I'm getting anywhere, but my dwarves would have just stood around until they died if it weren't for this. Now at least they can be doing something when they die.

Damn, you gotta pay for a SA forum account these days? Used to be able to browse for free... :(

[twothree]

If you really want to suffer through this anyway in order to see the interesting parts of the game, I suggest you start at the online Wiki.

http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page

This has the links at the bottom of the page to the download page, the official forums, and two threads with vital advice on getting started. It's also chock full of basic information that isn't clear in the game, like how farming works.

I added that page to my bookmarks.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Damn, you gotta pay for a SA forum account these days? Used to be able to browse for free... :(

Yeah, I've been unable to get back to that page today. Might have recently happened that they locked down the free viewing.

Anyway, the same info is here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1073830597

But although I think that info is good for the first five minutes, I don't think it does a great job of explaining much beyond that. His description of setting up a farm and floodgates, for example, leaves a lot to be desired.

[sachmo71]

One thing about this game that I'm really enjoying...I started out playing in adventure mode. Standard Rougelike fare, but when my character died, along with a few of the schlubs who signed up to go with me, they appear in the world history. I had one character who fought a named Ettin, and there was a bit more history here, something about how scholars aren't sure of everything, but they are pretty sure he killed my character. :)

[Shepp]

This game sounds alot like "Cultures" except maybe a whole lot bigger.

[Godzilla Blitz]

One thing about this game that I'm really enjoying...I started out playing in adventure mode. Standard Rougelike fare, but when my character died, along with a few of the schlubs who signed up to go with me, they appear in the world history. I had one character who fought a named Ettin, and there was a bit more history here, something about how scholars aren't sure of everything, but they are pretty sure he killed my character. :)

I haven't tried it yet, but it sounded like adventure mode is a bit borked at the moment. Have you found it pretty playable?

The stuff about previous games becoming part of the world history is pretty cool. I also like how you uncover the world history as you play. As with everything else in this game, I only understand a portion of how this works, but apparently there are evil races/leaders and an entire mythology/history that unfolds as you play more games in the same world.

[sachmo71]

I haven't tried it yet, but it sounded like adventure mode is a bit borked at the moment. Have you found it pretty playable?

The stuff about previous games becoming part of the world history is pretty cool. I also like how you uncover the world history as you play. As with everything else in this game, I only understand a portion of how this works, but apparently there are evil races/leaders and an entire mythology/history that unfolds as you play more games in the same world.

No, the adventure mode is very limited. Although combat is very detailed and VERY brutal. I die often, though. :)

[Godzilla Blitz]

No, the adventure mode is very limited. Although combat is very detailed and VERY brutal. I die often, though. :)

Ah, I see. I understand that is the adventure mode is the section of the game that the developers are spending a lot of time with now. Maybe in the next update they'll flesh that part out.

[sachmo71]

If it even approaches the playability of ADOM, this game could possibly be the most dangerous game ever invented.

I stayed up until 3 playing it last night. Every time I turn around, there is some other hidden feature that I missed. It's great fun, and I'm falling in love with my fortress. Perhaps it would be a fun place to clear out in a role playing adventure?

[Godzilla Blitz]

I stayed up until 3 playing it last night. Every time I turn around, there is some other hidden feature that I missed. It's great fun, and I'm falling in love with my fortress. Perhaps it would be a fun place to clear out in a role playing adventure?

Yeah, I've gone from confused to somewhat enjoying the game to being absolutely hooked on the game right now. The game just keeps getting more and more fun.

I was reading on the Wiki about people doing a Bloodline game. There would be a bunch of ways to do it, but the basic idea is that one person plays a fortress for a set amount of time, then passes the save game on to another person, and so on. Each person then writes up some information on what they did during their time in charge. I bet something like this would be a fun thing to try with the right people.

[sachmo71]

Yeah, I've gone from confused to somewhat enjoying the game to being absolutely hooked on the game right now. The game just keeps getting more and more fun.

I was reading on the Wiki about people doing a Bloodline game. There would be a bunch of ways to do it, but the basic idea is that one person plays a fortress for a set amount of time, then passes the save game on to another person, and so on. Each person then writes up some information on what they did during their time in charge. I bet something like this would be a fun thing to try with the right people.

I would be interested, but only if it went slowly. I know what you mean about being hooked. I had a peasent show up at my fortress, and I keep giving him different jobs to do, trying to turn him into jack of all trades. It's fun just trying to get my head around everything. When the metalcrafter showed up, I discovered that just building a metal workshop wasn't going to cut it... :D

[Groundhog]

I'm finally getting the hang of this awesome game - well, in regards to actually being able to make my little guys do stuff, but I've got a long way to go yet.

I'm about to start up a new game now that I know a little, but I have a few Qs for anyone playing:

1) Is it possible to fill in an area I've dug out? I was making the floodgate channel for my farm room, when I dug 1 square too many and I'd like to correct it but can't see how?

2) I also placed a floodgate in the wrong location and I'd like to pick it up and move it, but can't tell how?

[mrsimperless]

I'm finally getting the hang of this awesome game - well, in regards to actually being able to make my little guys do stuff, but I've got a long way to go yet.

I'm about to start up a new game now that I know a little, but I have a few Qs for anyone playing:

1) Is it possible to fill in an area I've dug out? I was making the floodgate channel for my farm room, when I dug 1 square too many and I'd like to correct it but can't see how?

2) I also placed a floodgate in the wrong location and I'd like to pick it up and move it, but can't tell how?

I don't think you can do either, although I could be wrong. The following thread from the official forum may help answer things a bit.

hxxp://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=000109

[mrsimperless]

If anyone figures out how to remove floodgates let me know. I messed up on mine as well because I place both floodgates before I hooked the first one up to the lever and then I couldn't get to it. Oops. first attempt at controlled flooding is a failure for me.

[sachmo71]

Floodgates don't allow you to remove the building?

[Godzilla Blitz]

I haven't figured out how to move a floodgate either. I thought I remember reading it was a bug or something that they can't be moved, but I might be wrong here.

I don't think you can fill in areas already dug, but I've heard people using doors and statues to fix up some of these things.

[sachmo71]

What happens during a collapse? Does it fill in the room, because if it does, that might be a way around it. I thought about trying it myself.

[mrsimperless]

I think it does, but not sure. I might give it a go cause my area is big enough. with my luck the floodgates will be left standing =)

[sachmo71]

I think it does, but not sure. I might give it a go cause my area is big enough. with my luck the floodgates will be left standing =)

:D

I'd back up my save, as well. You never know...

[Neon_Chaos]

collapses only fill in certain spots on the floor to make sure that there is no 7x7 area.

[KWhit]

Can somebody answer a gameplay question for me? My carpenter died and he had the only axe. Is there any way to get it back from him and give it to someone else?

If not, how do I create a new one if I have no wood left to get charcoal(and no axe to cut more down).

[Raven Hawk]

Alright, the game has already become tiresome for me as I hate the micromanagement aspect. I think I made it through two full years. The graphics are what keep me coming back for more. :rolleyes:


I never quite figured out how to staff up my military adequately.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Alright, the game has already become tiresome for me as I hate the micromanagement aspect. I think I made it through two full years. The graphics are what keep me coming back for more. :rolleyes:


I never quite figured out how to staff up my military adequately.

I think I got to the same place. I think the micromanagement lessens when you get nobles, but the combination of graphics, interface, and micromanagement made it tough for me to continue.

I also found it was tough to process what was happening in the game given the current interface. So many times I would go to a particular area and see the result of an activity, but I had no idea what happened. For example, I might find a dead lion near our entrance. How did it get there? Who killed it? Did someone fight it? The way the game is set up now, it's too easy to miss significant events. In a normal game this might not be a problem, but it made it a bitch to try and write a dynasty about the game. I ended up cycling through our dwarfs to see which one got hurt, and then piece the story together from the clues, but it was a lot of work and little reward. With 20+ dwarfs running around doing stuff at the same time, it was a nightmare trying to keep track of them all.

I think I'm going to go to have to go back to that dynasty and make an apologetic post about not continuing...

At some point I'll probably go back to the game and try to continue, especially when the game advances a few versions, which I'm hoping will improve the information processing in the game.

[Warhammer]

One thing I am afraid of it everyone forgetting that this is an alpha version. You can tell where they are going and when more and more things get added, this game is really going to rock.

[Godzilla Blitz]

One thing I am afraid of it everyone forgetting that this is an alpha version. You can tell where they are going and when more and more things get added, this game is really going to rock.

Yes, I will definitely keep following the game's progress, and may play again soon on my own. I still think it is a refreshingly complex and fun game.

However, I do think there are issues with how the game presents information to the gamer. Be nice to see these get adressed.

[Raven Hawk]

One thing I am afraid of it everyone forgetting that this is an alpha version. You can tell where they are going and when more and more things get added, this game is really going to rock.

There is no doubt in my mind that this game has huge potential and when it evolves a couple more versions, I'll be more than willing to come back to it. It is a good glimpse at the potential of the game. However, in its current state it becomes overwhelming quite quickly.

[firebirds]

I've been playing the game for few weeks now. I've got one where I'm in my 5th season with 100+ dwarves and another in my 3rd season with 80+. The thing I've found to cut down on the micromanagement issue is to set certain workshops with repetitive tasks, especially those that you don't/shouldn't have worries/options about. I have set a wood furnace to repeat the "make charcoal" task, my fishery set to repeat "prepair raw fish", the smelter I bounce between "make silver bars" and "make gold bars". I use the manager to set large orders for the masons, craftdwarves, metalsmiths, etc. I have also added the butchery skill to my hunters and trappers so that when they return a kill they automatically dress and store the meat, same goes with the fisherdwarves. By doing this I can pretty much concentrate on where to mine, what areas will be defined for particular purposes, monitor stock piles and the like. At the beginning when the dwarf number is small it is pretty easy to monitor each one but once critical mass hits it is really tough to stay up with everything so I automate as much as I can. It has been working for me so far anyway. I must admit that one of my games is heading the way of the dodo bird. I can't grow/slaughter/hunt/trap enough food for the entire crew. Wish about a dozen or so particular residents would decide to die and/or bail on me.

[daedalus]

Heh. My game went biblical:
http://daedalus.fastmail.fm/images/flood01.gifhttp://daedalus.fastmail.fm/images/flood02.gif
http://daedalus.fastmail.fm/images/flood03.gif
I don't know if I had my farming room flooding too long or something but, in the end, EVERYTHING was flooded. Including the outside. THAT was funny.

[Celeval]

I don't know if I had my farming room flooding too long or something but, in the end, EVERYTHING was flooded. Including the outside. THAT was funny.


Wait until you do it with the lava.

:-D

[daedalus]

I can totally see what some of the folks are saying (about there becoming too much micromanagement later on). I can absolutely see myself giving this game up once my settlement gets past 30 or so people (in fact, that was when the flooded settlement started to become unruly). For now, though, I'm still having fun tinkering with it.

[Runtheball]

Newly hooked on this game.
The wiki and help files are pretty poor, and I'm hoping someone here can give a few tips that will make my dwarves lives a little easier.

Why can't my cook prepare any meals? I have multiple types of meat, and I'm beginning to grow plants by the river. It always says the cook needs 2 non-rotten cookable items. How long do fish and meat remain edible? I can see in my stockpile I have many of each.

How can I clean-up the mud from a recent flooding of my fortress? I've taken a couple dwarves and given them only Cleaning as their labor tasks, but they don't clean the mud. I've got saplings growing in there!

[sachmo71]

Newly hooked on this game.
The wiki and help files are pretty poor, and I'm hoping someone here can give a few tips that will make my dwarves lives a little easier.

Why can't my cook prepare any meals? I have multiple types of meat, and I'm beginning to grow plants by the river. It always says the cook needs 2 non-rotten cookable items. How long do fish and meat remain edible? I can see in my stockpile I have many of each.

How can I clean-up the mud from a recent flooding of my fortress? I've taken a couple dwarves and given them only Cleaning as their labor tasks, but they don't clean the mud. I've got saplings growing in there!

re: cook - do you have a kitchen? do you have someone assigned to only cook? is the meat prepared? how about the fish?

re: mud - you want the mud. it's where you grow crops. cleaning dwarves take out trash, but mud remains. it will disappear after a year, anyway.

[Runtheball]

re: cook - do you have a kitchen? do you have someone assigned to only cook? is the meat prepared? how about the fish?

I'm sure the fish is prepared. I believe the meat is also. Would it be moved to a food stockpile even if it's not prepared? Does it need to be placed in some kind of container?

[sachmo71]

I'm sure the fish is prepared. I believe the meat is also. Would it be moved to a food stockpile even if it's not prepared? Does it need to be placed in some kind of container?

i think it's stockpiled before, and after, it's prepared. They put raw meat and fish in the storage area, then run out and grab them to prepare them in a kitchen or fishery. It can be confusing, but i think they are clearly marked as prepared after the deed is done.

[Airhog]

DF has undergone many changes since it was last talked about, the most significant is the ability to go up and down now. For those of you that previously played the game, you should check it out again. I think the game now is actually easier in the beginning, but not 100% sure here


For those of you that think it was too complex, take a look at this amazing tutorial. I played it all weekend. It has a link to the game files, and a saved game to help you start out right. By the time you finish the tutorial you should have a grasp of all of the major concepts. This tutorial is not using the latest version though, I think it is using the version before the newest one, but if its your first time playing it doesn't really matter

The Complete and Utter Newby Tutorial for Dwarf Fortress – Part 1: “WTF?” « After Action Reporter (http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/)


I'm currently playing my first fortress as part of the tutorial, I just got my first wave of immigrants and my second trade caravan. I am currently working on setting up my metalworking, as I have just discovered a magma pool.

[gstelmack]

I owe it to myself to get around to playing this game sometime soon.

[Tasan]

Yikes. Just lost 4 hours of my day there. Careful folks, this stuff is dangerous.

[Khorium]

Still working with crappy ASCII I see.

Pass.

[thesloppy]

Still working with crappy ASCII I see.

Pass.

The tutorial uses a tileset (and you can get a tileset for the new version too)...it's not anything close to 'good' graphically, but it makes all the difference between playing straight ASCII, in my opinion.

http://afteractionreporter.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dftutorial08.png?w=375&h=281

[gstelmack]

There's another one that looks pretty good as well by Pheobus: Phoebus' Graphic Set v1.7.3 for DF v0.31.03 (New font, tiles & bugfixes) (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=52186.0).

Not sure which one to go with, may have to go with the tutorial one just to help with the learning.

[Icy]

The game looks really deep and i have thought about learning it for some time, but the ascii graphics always turned me down. I don't mind old graphics in games, but can't enjoy with just ascii.

Now that you guys posted alternative graphics that are not ascii.... i might give it a try this summer once i have a more relaxed schedule.

[Celeval]

There are plenty of graphic sets out there - although I prefer the ascii. :)

[Airhog]

I would hold off on 2010 version, and stick with the d40 version. There are still some significant bugs to be worked out of the 2010 version. It is pretty playable for the most part though. (Hospitals are broken mostly, and combat is more difficult and some stuff is broke)

[Airhog]

I'm just to the point where I am about to start making metal items. I also lost my first dwarf in the river. He was fishing, and a pike killed him.

[Vince, Pt. II]

There are plenty of graphic sets out there - although I prefer the ascii. :)

Reminds me of Moria back in the day. I haven't tried DF yet, but I'm sure I would have to go with the ascii if I did.

[Tasan]

I'm just to the point where I am about to start making metal items. I also lost my first dwarf in the river. He was fishing, and a pike killed him.


Pikes are deadly, deadly creatures in this game. Fisherdwarfs beware!

I burned my whole freakin' day on this game.

[Airhog]

Pikes are deadly, deadly creatures in this game. Fisherdwarfs beware!

I burned my whole freakin' day on this game.

Lucky for me, the dwarf killed was fresh off the boat, and hadn't made any friends yet. So nobody really cared that he was killed. One thing was wierd though. He was buried in a coffin that I had built, yet he remains are still at the bottom of the river. :D

[Thomkal]

Hello Dwarf Fortress fans! I don't play myself (though I should), I admire the game and thought those who do play it would like to know that there's an update for the first time in two years!

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/07/08/dwarf-fortress-0-40-01-released-in-game-graphics-now-possible-in-older-version/

[Bobble]

I was playing DF just yesterday with the Masterwork mod. Definitely looking forward to the new version but I'm going to wait for a while until the most *FUN* bugs are found.

[Bobble]

I'm downloading the latest lazy newb pack now. Anyone else playing the latest version?