Dorf Fortress

[Gretyl]

[LINK]

Yes, it's a free roguelike/Nethackalong. Part SimCity, part Lord of the Rings. No magic, just your dwarves, some elves, humans, kobolds, goblins... and bad nasties in the deep. The game's slogan? Losing is fun!

Below is the status report from my latest attempt at losing: made it through three winters so far, but the past couple goblin invasions aren't helping. Population's down from an early peak of 43.



Anyone else playing?

[Cody]

It's very addictive!

Here is an interview with Tarn Adams that is very informative.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... dwarf_.php

[aeon grey]

blocked.. I am always looking for games like this to play while at work.. nothing works.. news is getting boring and depressing.

[Cody]

Here's a screenshot from the upcoming (non-existant) graphical update!

[Cody]

blocked.. I am always looking for games like this to play while at work.. nothing works.. news is getting boring and depressing.

this game is not a "set it and forget it" type of game. You're gonna want to start it on a Saturday morning from your computer at home, not a Thursday afternoon from work.

[Cody]

Also, it helps a lot of you go read some stories that people have written about their dwarves before playing. There's a shit-ton of information coming at you, and when you're new it's impossible to understand it all. Especially read up on some recommended strategies for spending your points at the beginning.

[aeon grey]

I think you underestimate the amount of free time my job gives me.

[Gretyl]

My favorite dwarf, the expedition leader, until he gets himself killed and I go emo and abandon my fortress:

[Gretyl]

Wow, next wave of migrants hit. Back up to 37 dwarfen.

[Tom the Cat]

I haven't played long enough to even get a set of migrants (although I have a good feeling about my new settlement), but can dwarves copulate? Do you have to get migrants in order to expand, or can you just get a male & female dwarf together and give 'em the Honeymoon Suite?

My newest one is coming along nicely, anyway. I have sand right outside my fort, have dug out sleeping, eating, storage and waste areas, have made a bedroom and an office for my expedition leader, and now I'm working on some underground workshops. Those will dig further into the mountain, and eventually, six or so Z-levels below my initial embark point, I'll be on the ground floor, build me a trade depot and a road to the border.

This game is far more enjoyable when you have a slight idea what you're doing and you take the time to prepare before the trip.

[daoist]

what the hell, I'll play too.

[Agape]

don't IT people track this kind of thing?

[daoist]

they're all idling. How do I tell them to do shit?

Lazy fucking dwarves.

[daoist]

wait, I think one guy started farming.

[Tom the Cat]

I'd suggest checking out a guide; it'll help tremendously. If you Google 'dwarf fortress wiki,' you'll get some quality returns, but the main wiki seems to be temporarily down. Just check google's cached version of the page for 'Your first fortress.' It'll explain how to get people mining, farming, and otherwise working to keep your fortress alive.

And hey, if things don't go well, don't hesitate to hit escape, abandon your fortress, and start anew elsewhere on your map.

I'm on my fourth fortress already, and I didn't play the previous three long enough to even get to cooking or brewing. Your first few fortresses will definitely be learning experiences.

[daoist]

i have two farming plots, but no seeds I guess. whoops. I sent one guy fishing.

[Gretyl]

I baaarely survived my first winter, and that's with reading a guide. But don't worry, kids! Losing is fun!

[Cody]

or can you just get a male & female dwarf together and give 'em the Honeymoon Suite?

I think they can fall in love and make babies, but then they become insanely jealous and wrathful anytime they see their partner interacting with another member of the opposite sex.

[daoist]

i have no idea what time / season it is.

[Gretyl]

Z - General Status. Date's in the upper-right. Also, you start in the spring and there'll be an [A]nnouncement whenever seasons change.

[daoist]

I think I'm sorta getting the hang of this. Maybe.

[daoist]

let's see what happens when I dig under a lake.

[daoist]

yeah. that's what happens.

[Gretyl]

More migrants... MORE!

[Gretyl]

So far, I've had 3 fey moods and one strange mood. The second fey mood happened to a child, who got snatched out from the workshop they were obsessing in. The third fey mood happened to my first sheriff, who went insane until dying of thirst.

The strange mood? Got me a legendary metalsmith (and a bitchin' Iron table!), who unfortunately succumbed not long thereafter to goblin wave #1.

--speak of the devil, my blacksmith's feelin' a bit fey now!

[Gretyl]

Sonofabeech. My blacksmith got a wild hair up his ass to build me... an Iron floodgate!

[daoist]

is there somewhere to find out why they're not doing stuff? I know if they're missing a raw material that'll go into the announcements, but I've had some tunnels slated to be dug for a long time and nobody's doing jack shit. They're all sitting around idle or other shit.

[Gretyl]

You've checked [J]ob List and they're sitting at No Job? If not, they're probably doing something else they think is more prudent.

If they are listed as No Job, you might be running into a pathfinding issue that Tom the Cat brought to my attention. Basically, if you're trying to dig a channel through a 1-wide underground passage, your dwarves might not like it. To restart them on the task, just mine an adjacent square next to where they stopped digging.

Does that help?

[Gretyl]

She admired a fine Trap lately.

Fine trap indeed! :monocle:

[Warlock]

Ok, I don't get this game. I tried to mine out a fortress but the Dwarves won't even touch it. They just wander the wilderness doing nothing -_-

[Cody]

Ok, I don't get this game. I tried to mine out a fortress but the Dwarves won't even touch it. They just wander the wilderness doing nothing -_-

They're probably hungry or thirsty or else you didn't mine an entrance or something. Maybe there was a snake in the way and they got scared.

Also, if you don't train a miner in your setup, it makes it much harder for you.

[Warlock]

No, I had an entrance and a miner. I followed the "your first fortress" guide exactly (as far as I can tell, some of it is a bit confusing).

But even if they were hungry or something, how can you even tell? I could find no real information about what was going on, except if I clicked on the dwarves I would get their life story about how they were super happy and believed in X god, and soforth.

BTW, is that graphical thing real? The game would probably be soooo much easier to understand if I could tell what the hell everything was without having to "k" over it.

[daoist]

I've got two main miner guys, and they're both No Job right now. I even designated more mining areas, but they're still sitting around.

[Warlock]

I think I figured it out. If you are digging below where you are, the down stairs and up stairs need to be on the exact same tile as each other (down on the top level, up on the bottom). The tutorial thing wasn't worded very well.

[Tom the Cat]

Some fucked up stuff can happen if you accidentally make an erroneous keypress. Tonight I was getting frustrated because it seemed that everyone had decided to stop gathering wood, and after a few hours(!) I realized that I'd set the orders for the dwarves to all ignore lumber.

Switched it back on, and suddenly they couldn't wait to help out with those log piles.

Part of me wants to go to sleep, and part of me wants to show off some of the cooler stuff in my fort. Possible picdump incoming.

[daoist]

Okay I think my two main digger guys were disgruntled because i don't have a well. But I read online they prefer booze anyhow, so I built a still and set a guy to gathering plants, and built some barrels. While those two wait to get fucked up on the booze, I designated another guy as a miner too, so he's digging all the stuff they left behind.

[Gretyl]

Also, miners won't dig anywhere they can't directly walk up to. Their pathfinding was programmed to use A* with heuristics based on pre-computed connected components, so barring a few edge-cases, they should be able to get anywhere a dwarf could walk (i.e. not down or up a cliff, but slopes are fine).

[daoist]

I got a few migrants. I gave most of them the mining ability. It seems everyone is at least doing something now.

[Gretyl]

Yeah, you're best off keeping idlers as close to zero as possible.

I really dig how this game models injuries. If any of your dwarves get hurt badly enough to temporarily be on your idlers list... well, uh... they're probably gonna bite it, Little House on the Prairie-style.

[Tom the Cat]

Alright, before I get too into my shit today, I figured I'd give all ya'll a look around my fort. It's the first one I'm actually proud of, although I'm not positive these little guys will survive the winter.

First, my embark point. My idea was that I wanted to make something secure, so I made an entry hallway that people have to pass through before getting to anything I care about. The ^ are traps, although it has just occurred to me that I think I need to link them to some pressure plates if I want them to work. Live and learn. I'd been wondering why those Kobold thieves seemed to have no problem getting in and out of that room. That's probably why. Anyway, let's head down a floor...

...to the main crew quarters, the 'legendary' dining hall, and some of the surrounding area. Combined with our next picture...

...you can see our pantry, cookery and brewery, our slaughterhouse (adjoined with our animal storage), our kennels, and our newly opened personal sleeping areas. Now that I have enough dwarves to actually form an army, I figure I'll use the barracks as a barracks, and give the other workers something reasonable to sleep in. Just south of the new bedrooms (and just north of the small refuse room), you'll see stairs leading upwards. That's to our executive suites, for dwarves that need both sleeping quarters and an office, among other things. For now, I'm not going to bother screencapping it, because it's frankly not worth showing off, yet.

Down another floor, and we have the beginnings of my work area. Stealing an idea from Gretyl, I made my workshops stacked. Here we have our wood stockpile (and eventually our stone/ore/gems stockpile if I ever find any I want to have close). Down a floor...

...we have our work area. I have a carpenter's, mason's, craftsdwarf's, mechanic's, and smith's workshops set up, as well as a wood furnace and a smelter. Now all I need is some goddamn smeltable ore. Not that I'm bitter.

Another floor down, we have the furniture and finished goods piles. I put them on the bottom rather than top primarily so they would be closer to our Trade Depot. Heading there now...

I set this up as a chokepoint with more traps. Although it appears to have two paths leading in, only one of those paths actually leads outdoors. I'll show you where the other one leads in a second. Anyway, following the top path (and skipping part of it, as it is long and boring)...

...we come to my entryway and trade depot. There are some 'legendary' etchings on the walls, apparently, and I like it a lot. Anyway, just a little south of there...

...is the channel I dug. Remember up on the main floor with the barracks, how there was one small circular room that seemed to have no purpose? That will eventually have a well in it (if I can ever smith a goddamned chain, fucking no-ore having son of a bitch mountain), and this channel (which stems from a nearby brook) will supply the water to it. In the process of digging the channel, I connected it to that still pond, making it a freshwater pond. Down a level, we have my most prized room yet...

...our new underground farm. While there's tons of sand in and around my mountain, I had yet to find any subterranean soil, and if I wanted my farm to be secure, I'd have to irrigate. That X you see there is a floodgate, which has worked like a charm. The lever next to the stairs controls it (and if there weren't a pile of rocks in the doorway, the doorway would block any possible flooding). Anyway, I opened it, let some water in, closed it, and waited for the water to spread out. Once there was one or zero levels of water standing on the ground, I was able to plant in the muddy fields, just as winter set in.

Like I say, my biggest worry right now is my dwarves' starvation. If we make it through the winter, we should be alright.

Anyway, sorry for the dumperoo. I promise to not make posts like these a habit (unless people actually like this kind of shit).

[Gretyl]

Well, there's always the DFMA for telling those kind of stories. They have annotated points-of-interest, zoom in/out & click+drag map movement.

[daoist]

dude that is sweet.

[daoist]

Any idea what to do when someone gets posessed?

[daoist]

well, problem solved itself. she went crazy then died. And then rotted before anybody would go build a goddamned coffin. sheesh, guys. way to drop the ball.

[Fuzzy]

is there a ralph's nearby?

[Tom the Cat]

I'm really disgusted that I have this brand new gaming rig and yet I spent almost all day yesterday playing this game instead.

[daoist]

I know what you mean (aside from the gaming rig); I had just gotten back into WOW pretty hardcore in the past couple of days. Nope, been diddling ASCII shit since then.

So an update on my fortress:

Since I settled on a plain instead of in a mountain (I didn't read any quickstart guides, doh) I've been digging straight down. I built a little keep above my main stairways. I made a big badass living quarters and a couple levels below that I'm working on making some stylin new digs for my nobles.

I did, however, finally get the bastards to build a well. That was a lot of fun trying to figure it out. I ended up digging a tunnel up to a river (1 z-level below) and installing 2 doors. Then I hooked both up to mechanisms. The first door can close to prevent river water from getting into the tunnel, while the second is in case the river decides to flood the stairwell. So then once in place I told the dwarf in the tunnel to dig up (no no, dig up! stupid!) and then get his ass out of dodge city. After that it was just a manner of dropping a well down in the tunnel above.

[Gretyl]

Here's the start to my latest fortress. Anyone else posted to DFMA yet?

[daoist]

my fortress is so ugly I'm embarassed to post it.

[daoist]

It's hard to do the traditional dwarven things when I can't find any metal

[Gretyl]

Don't hesitate to abandon the shit outta your first couple tries. I've already ditched the fort that had my main dwarf Mafol leading it. The guy was a total prick!

Also, it'd suck if you happened to start yourself onna aquifer map!

[Gretyl]

traditional dwarven things

Hey man, let your notions of "tradition" vary from fort to fort. You can build everything from wood, as long as yer packin' a woodcuttah. And... have you built a depot yet? :d

[daoist]

I did more research, apparently I did have some iron ore. I expected it to be called "iron ore" but noooo, there's like 3 ores you can get iron from, and I have some of one. Too bad I had to destroy some of my swank living quarters to get it. Oh, and I repelled some goblin raiders. Fucking orcs.

[Tom the Cat]

My most recent fort. I never got around to posting the screenshots I took of my drinking pool/statue garden/well reservoir, but it's probably the proudest I've been yet of creative engineering fun times.

Anyway, I just got back from Iowa City not long ago, so before I'm tempted to play more of this, I'm going to fucking bed.

[Warlock]

I am so hooked on this game now But I am having problems keeping my dwarves properly fed. They don't seem to actually "do" stuff that would get them food, even though I try to make Hunters, Farmers, etc. Maybe they are just gluttons? Water is also a problem - I'm trying to build a channel from the running river but the lazy ass Dwarves will not fucking dig it.. *sigh* And I know they can get to it, they are just stupid. Maybe I should get one and turn off everything but mining.

Also, is there like a better way to teach them how to fight? My last fortress I had like 10 Kobolds come out of nowhere and basically murder half of my population. This one I have been mostly ok, only a couple attacks, and I did create a mini-military, but it doesn't seem to work well. I'd like it if say, a guy is out Hunting, he could just whoop some Goblin butt if one starts chasing after children or something.

[Gretyl]

Maybe I should get one and turn off everything but mining.

YES! Hauling will seriously slow down your economy's development if not strictly regulated on when/where/who/what. Until the time that your constructions start getting cancelled due to obstructing objects, you're probably fine disabling (non-refuse) hauling on everyone once you've disassembled & relocated your starting wagon.

Also, is there like a better way to teach them how to fight? My last fortress I had like 10 Kobolds come out of nowhere and basically murder half of my population. This one I have been mostly ok, only a couple attacks, and I did create a mini-military, but it doesn't seem to work well.

m-v on each squad you've activated. A squad that's standing down will spar with each other to train up and/or use any archery ranges you've established (if they're marksdwarves or prefer crossbows).

I'd like it if say, a guy is out Hunting, he could just whoop some Goblin butt if one starts chasing after children or something.

I'm pretty sure something like that would happen now, no more work on your part. Granted, Hunters are civilians, so they could just as well eat/drink/fuck-off in the middle of combat, but I've had a few dwarves get "interrupted by [wildlife]" a few too many times, so they just hauled off and beat some [annoying animal] ass! This game has so much depth, I've still got lots to learn and internalize.

[Warlock]

I'd like it if say, a guy is out Hunting, he could just whoop some Goblin butt if one starts chasing after children or something.

I'm pretty sure something like that would happen now, no more work on your part. Granted, Hunters are civilians, so they could just as well eat/drink/fuck-off in the middle of combat, but I've had a few dwarves get "interrupted by [wildlife]" a few too many times, so they just hauled off and beat some [annoying animal] ass! This game has so much depth, I've still got lots to learn and internalize.

Yeah, when that happens they just tend to die.

Anyways, I think I know why I like this so much. It's basically Dungeon Keeper, but with a more Sims-ish style of managing your dwarves. Someone seriously needs to revive that franchise

[Tom the Cat]

Holy God, so much going on in my place! I got an influx of dwarves at the same time that an Elven Caravan was there, and it promoted my Legendary Miner to Mayor, and promoted my Sheriff to Captain of the Guard. I now have to accommodate the new folks, the mayor, and try to keep everything in order (my fort is getting cluttered with all the stuff I've been producing!). 59 dwarves now, I can't imagine how hectic it must get at 100+.

[daoist]

I thought i posted this already, but here's my fort:

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-2870-daoistsfirsttry

[Tom the Cat]

I thought I was soooooo clever, digging a shaft leading down to my giant cave that I could then use as a handy refuse dump.

Then a giant cave swallow flew up and murdered four of my dwarves before I could bludgeon it into submission.

[Gretyl]

Build those dwarves good coffins. Godspeed!

[Gretyl]

Aww, DFMA's side profile symbol for dwarves is ky00t!



Can I keep them?

[daoist]

How to slow DF to a crawl: set up a stone stockpile outside above ground, then designate the bottom 3 z-levels for strip mining.

[Gretyl]

How many Z-levels we talking? Have you turned off stone hauling?

[daoist]

I posted my fortress earlier, but there's about 5 or 6 more layers below the lowest one I posted there. I have stone hauling on because I want it to be as realistic as possible / look as nice as possible inside.