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Dwarf Fortress: When you wake up in the morning, consider torture.
Mayday
Cutting edge goblin techRegistered User regular
Cutting edge goblin techRegistered User regular
Welcome to Dwarf Fortress!!
(stories of bloodshed and pressure plates)
Get it here: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
A tutorial is available here: Your First Fortress
Then there's also: a very helpful Illustrated Fortress Mode Tutorial
The ever helpful Dwarf Fortress wiki
The First G&T DF thread - forever lost to the chaos of the intertubes
The Second G&T DF thread
The Third G&T DF thread
The Fourth G&T DF thread
The Fifth G&T DF thread
The Sixth G&T DF thread
The Seventh G&T DF thread
The Eighth G&T thread
And the SA DF thread, the Goons have plenty of DF chatter too.
And of course THE EPIC SAGA OF BOATMURDERED which is a must-read.
Welcome to the mountainhome of the dwarves! Starting out with a hardy band of seven pioneers, you will be beset on all sides by the threat of starvation, exposure, rampant idiocy, inexperience, tantrums, monkey attacks, hostile goblins, kleptomaniacal kobolds, accidental drownings, those goddamn hippy elves, being set on fire, upper class nobles that will make lives hell for your peasantry, and the mortal enemies of the dwarves: [strike]elephants[/strike] carp.
So what's Dwarf Fortress?
It's a rather bizarre [strike]little[/strike] huge roguelike/ fantasy world generator / colony management sim hybrid. With lots of dead dwarves guaranteed.
You start out with a tiny band of 7 dwarves, a wagon, mules and a pair of cats that multiply without any restraint and flood your fortress with kittens.
With a little luck (and if those goddamn monkeys dont steal all your food off the wagon again), your fortress will make it past the first winter. Or more likely it will collapse and you'll start up a new fortress, avoiding the mistakes of the first.
...before it all ends in a tide of blood and dwarf parts!
And then you start AGAIN!
So what does it look like?
AAAAA LETTERS EVERYWHERE OH GOD HOW DO I DO STUFF?!
A few keys will come up a lot. Pressing these keys will bring up a yellow X cursor which you control using the arrow keys. PROTIP: use the keypad to move the cursor around- it's more comfortable.
Q - assigns orders at workshops and structures, or used to create rooms from a placed structure, like tables, beds, archery targets, etc, or to destroy them.
T - much like Q, but works for sTructures. Use this when you want to examine/destroy a structure that is not a workshop. Also useful for peeking at the contents of a workshop to see how cluttered it is.
V - Examines an individual dwarf, where you can look at their stats, gear, thoughts and alter their job list.
K - If you'd like to see if that U is an attacking Unicorn or a friendly hUman trader, this is the key you want. Pressing enter examines the object in greater detail (if any).
D - Designates an area for tasks. Hit enter to start dragging out a rectangle, enter to stop. Or hold down the mouse button and draw it in. Everything in this area will now be designated for whatever task you had selected, from Digging out rock, cutting down trees, or picking plants, or whatever else it might have been. Use this to dig out your dwarf-hole.
Z - Brings up your fortress report and tells you how depressingly low you are on food.
U - displays a list of all units on the map, along with current job. Useful for finding idlers and wild animals
< and > - Change the levevel displayed by one (up and down, respectively). Since you'll be using these a lot, it might be wise to remap the keys (I use / and * on the keypad). To do this, press ESC and use the "Key Bindings" option ("move/view cursor up (Z)" and "down (Z)" )
I built a bridge, but it looked ugly so I demolished it. The new one never gets built because of pathing errors!
Common mistake. Never cut off the fortress. The dwarf builders are trying to get to material/worksites on the other side of the river/chasm, but cant because there's no bridge anymore. Avoid this by always having spare bridges. If this has already happened, build stone blocks at your masonry workshop and use those to build your new bridge, ensuring that you're using accessible materials.
They've sent a diplomat from the mountainhomes and he's killing all my dorfs! What kind of a diplomat is he?!
Aye, the outpost liaison who comes with the dwarven caravan is a delicate fellow. When he arrives, ensure that your outpost leader (use the N key to find him) has all jobs turned off, so that he has the time to meet the diplomat. Otherwise the poor guy will feel unaccepted and get miserable/insane/berserk.
How do I change the game resolution/settings/colours/etc?
In the data/init directory is init.txt, a well documented file which contains all sorts of DF settings.
I'd play this if only it had graphics
There's replacement tile and object graphics you can use along with install instructions on these pages:
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Tilesets
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/List_of_user_character_sets
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/List_of_user_graphics_sets
Then there's also this: http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.htm
It makes the game look like this:
This game is running slooooooooow! I thought ASCII graphics don't need a fast PC?
Make sure your starting area is suitably small for your PC. If you're already in the middle of a game, it may also help to turn off weather and/or temperature in the data\init\init.txt file. There is also a possibility you have set an FPS_CAP in the very same file.
What happens if I do this?
Just try it first! It's no fun if we tell you that you would have doomed all your dwarves to a horrible agonizing death beforehand. No fun at all!
Besides, it just means you get to do it better next time.
How do I back up my save game?
A good idea, since the game is only in alpha, and does crash (rarely), but if it does, it can corrupt your entire world.
Make a copy of the data/save directory and keep it somewhere safe. To restore, delete your entire data/save directory and replace it with your copy. NOT DELETING IT FIRST WILL CAUSE ERRORS. For the backing up of save games, you can also go into the init.txt file (\data\init\init.txt) and set
[AUTOSAVE:NONE] to
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
and
[AUTOBACKUP:NO] to
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
You can make the autosave yearly as well, and making autobackup set to yes will make each autosave a new save instead of overwriting your current one.
(This introduction was edited by SynthOr, Bahamut0, J3p, and Mayday.)
(stories of bloodshed and pressure plates)
Get it here: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
A tutorial is available here: Your First Fortress
Then there's also: a very helpful Illustrated Fortress Mode Tutorial
The ever helpful Dwarf Fortress wiki
The First G&T DF thread - forever lost to the chaos of the intertubes
The Second G&T DF thread
The Third G&T DF thread
The Fourth G&T DF thread
The Fifth G&T DF thread
The Sixth G&T DF thread
The Seventh G&T DF thread
The Eighth G&T thread
And the SA DF thread, the Goons have plenty of DF chatter too.
And of course THE EPIC SAGA OF BOATMURDERED which is a must-read.
Welcome to the mountainhome of the dwarves! Starting out with a hardy band of seven pioneers, you will be beset on all sides by the threat of starvation, exposure, rampant idiocy, inexperience, tantrums, monkey attacks, hostile goblins, kleptomaniacal kobolds, accidental drownings, those goddamn hippy elves, being set on fire, upper class nobles that will make lives hell for your peasantry, and the mortal enemies of the dwarves: [strike]elephants[/strike] carp.
So what's Dwarf Fortress?
It's a rather bizarre [strike]little[/strike] huge roguelike/ fantasy world generator / colony management sim hybrid. With lots of dead dwarves guaranteed.
You start out with a tiny band of 7 dwarves, a wagon, mules and a pair of cats that multiply without any restraint and flood your fortress with kittens.
With a little luck (and if those goddamn monkeys dont steal all your food off the wagon again), your fortress will make it past the first winter. Or more likely it will collapse and you'll start up a new fortress, avoiding the mistakes of the first.
...before it all ends in a tide of blood and dwarf parts!
And then you start AGAIN!
So what does it look like?
AAAAA LETTERS EVERYWHERE OH GOD HOW DO I DO STUFF?!
A few keys will come up a lot. Pressing these keys will bring up a yellow X cursor which you control using the arrow keys. PROTIP: use the keypad to move the cursor around- it's more comfortable.
Q - assigns orders at workshops and structures, or used to create rooms from a placed structure, like tables, beds, archery targets, etc, or to destroy them.
T - much like Q, but works for sTructures. Use this when you want to examine/destroy a structure that is not a workshop. Also useful for peeking at the contents of a workshop to see how cluttered it is.
V - Examines an individual dwarf, where you can look at their stats, gear, thoughts and alter their job list.
K - If you'd like to see if that U is an attacking Unicorn or a friendly hUman trader, this is the key you want. Pressing enter examines the object in greater detail (if any).
D - Designates an area for tasks. Hit enter to start dragging out a rectangle, enter to stop. Or hold down the mouse button and draw it in. Everything in this area will now be designated for whatever task you had selected, from Digging out rock, cutting down trees, or picking plants, or whatever else it might have been. Use this to dig out your dwarf-hole.
Z - Brings up your fortress report and tells you how depressingly low you are on food.
U - displays a list of all units on the map, along with current job. Useful for finding idlers and wild animals
< and > - Change the levevel displayed by one (up and down, respectively). Since you'll be using these a lot, it might be wise to remap the keys (I use / and * on the keypad). To do this, press ESC and use the "Key Bindings" option ("move/view cursor up (Z)" and "down (Z)" )
I built a bridge, but it looked ugly so I demolished it. The new one never gets built because of pathing errors!
Common mistake. Never cut off the fortress. The dwarf builders are trying to get to material/worksites on the other side of the river/chasm, but cant because there's no bridge anymore. Avoid this by always having spare bridges. If this has already happened, build stone blocks at your masonry workshop and use those to build your new bridge, ensuring that you're using accessible materials.
They've sent a diplomat from the mountainhomes and he's killing all my dorfs! What kind of a diplomat is he?!
Aye, the outpost liaison who comes with the dwarven caravan is a delicate fellow. When he arrives, ensure that your outpost leader (use the N key to find him) has all jobs turned off, so that he has the time to meet the diplomat. Otherwise the poor guy will feel unaccepted and get miserable/insane/berserk.
How do I change the game resolution/settings/colours/etc?
In the data/init directory is init.txt, a well documented file which contains all sorts of DF settings.
I'd play this if only it had graphics
There's replacement tile and object graphics you can use along with install instructions on these pages:
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Tilesets
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/List_of_user_character_sets
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/List_of_user_graphics_sets
Then there's also this: http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.htm
It makes the game look like this:
This game is running slooooooooow! I thought ASCII graphics don't need a fast PC?
Make sure your starting area is suitably small for your PC. If you're already in the middle of a game, it may also help to turn off weather and/or temperature in the data\init\init.txt file. There is also a possibility you have set an FPS_CAP in the very same file.
What happens if I do this?
Just try it first! It's no fun if we tell you that you would have doomed all your dwarves to a horrible agonizing death beforehand. No fun at all!
Besides, it just means you get to do it better next time.
How do I back up my save game?
A good idea, since the game is only in alpha, and does crash (rarely), but if it does, it can corrupt your entire world.
Make a copy of the data/save directory and keep it somewhere safe. To restore, delete your entire data/save directory and replace it with your copy. NOT DELETING IT FIRST WILL CAUSE ERRORS. For the backing up of save games, you can also go into the init.txt file (\data\init\init.txt) and set
[AUTOSAVE:NONE] to
[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
and
[AUTOBACKUP:NO] to
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
You can make the autosave yearly as well, and making autobackup set to yes will make each autosave a new save instead of overwriting your current one.
(This introduction was edited by SynthOr, Bahamut0, J3p, and Mayday.)
Mayday on
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Posts
Also added a shameless plug in the OP.
In other news: WOoooo, this is the second Great Countdown since I've started playing DF. Who's excited? I know I'm excited.
Incoming in the next version:
-improved military controls
-increased underground diversity
-wonderfully developed wound system
-new attributes
Uhhh... the Duchess wants an "item in bedroom". How the hell do I fulfill THAT demand?!
Yeah, thats why I was saying to lock them all inside so that there wouldn't be any pathing errors. The only real problem I remember with dwarves trying to go to somewhere and getting pathing errors was when you set the option to Dwarves may not go outside, they'll continue to try, but if the door is locked they will stop the job. Also if there are still pathing errors with trying to obtain items from outside, we could just forbid the entire ground floor so people stop trying to path up there to haul items. Also if it was played on one map each fort would only be able to access one of the map's resources most likely, i.e. only one fort would have access to the lava vent, only one would have the underground river, etc. Now I'm really excited about trying this fort out, it seems like it would be a really cool idea.
Ooh, I just had a pretty cool idea that would not actually be that cool in-game. A mirror city. On the surface, I build a human-style city with houses, a tavern, a church etc. Below ground I dig out identical copies of the buildings above ground only pointing downwards, making a mirror image copy of the city above.
Too bad you wouldn't be able to tell from the surface.
Faux edit: Man, this is our sixth DF thread, crazy.
Real edit: Damn, I never even knew about the first three, I didn't join until the "third" thread was almost finished.
For a game that has like 10 PAers playing it at any one time, that's pretty good.
There's a Mac version linked on the front page of the DF website! Screw Crossover. :P
Samoris- actually, it's the ninth. Edited.
So, anyone knows what to do with a demand: "item in bedroom"? Nothing seems to work.
EDIT654: Oh man, I just remembered something. This is the new thread title.
It's a bug, been around since last fall I think. Sometimes if you're really desperate you can guess it by taking into account the dwarf's preferences and making random furniture until the demand is satisfied, but I usually just ignore them. They don't seem to trigger a visit from the hammerer.
Also, tower project in latest fort diverted to a high-altitude stony tomb for the 7 dwarves killed so far by carp.
Edit: make that 9.
I like your idea, it does sound fun. If & when the "burrows" are implemented you could cordon them off and then connect them... if you wanted to, or if there was a point.
It seems like the inability to bring some basic skills will make your satellite forts slower to grow.
Good title Mayday, though I don't know if it's better then waking up in the moring and considering suacide.
Should be complete with statued hallway entrance to core fort, and walls engraved with masterful renditions of pictures of goblins killing humans.
All made by the tribute fort of course.
Maybe it would be an idea to make some sort of tribute delivery system too. Would that be possible? To, say, move a barrel of alcohol from the tribute fort to the core fort via some sort of waterway?
Anything that produces bad thoughts.. hunting vermin for food, friends (or pets) dying, being injured, destroyed masterworks. It's pretty hard to trigger on champions at will. It usually needs a catalyst, such as a goblin siege killing a bunch of the champion's friends.
If you get the dwarf companion off the wiki, it lets you set any creature to "berserk" if you so desire, if you're not against cheating.
The one problem with the Mac version is that its main loop isn't quite like the Windows version. (I know, because I wrote the main loop for the Mac version.) The Windows version has certain things decoupled vs. the Mac, and so runs much faster (at least while you don't have 200 cats... they should even out at that point).
It's not that the Mac isn't capable of having the same speed as the Windows version. It's just that I wrote shitty code for Toady. Maybe I should rewrite it for him...
Build a walkway above a shaft that leads to the main fortress, and designate that shaft as a dump. Select the food that you want paid as tribute and dump it, then reclaim it once it hits the floor.
Imagine, a score of starving and thirsty dwarfs, eating only what they can salvage from the fields before it's whisked away to be dropped into a shaft for a reasons unknown to them, while deep below their feet the gluttonous heroes grow fat off the labour of those above.
Until the first goblin ambush, that is, when the mighty stone doors, unopened in the accounts of the above-grounders, swing outwards, revealing ten mighty warriors, who dispatch the goblins by ripping them limb from limb. Their task completed, the warriors retreat back into their fortress of seclusion, leaving only the corpses of their enemies and the memories of their fight in the minds of the witnesses.
Seasons change, and years pass, and the workers toil diligently, knowing that when the time comes those doors will open once again, and the champions will emerge to save them from destruction once again.
You put my vision to life, sir.
It's been an honour posting in the same thread as you.
Aaaaand blue dot.
Xtarath has gone beserk!
Xtarath cancels start fist fight: caged.
hmxmoss cancels reply: interrupted by carp.
Ahh, the sweet smell of man eating carp.
On a related note, the new stat system is one thing I'm really looking forward too. One step closer to a dwarf mage conjurering beer.
Speaking of beer...
Why can't we have masterfully crafted beer? I mean, you've got almost-water, mass-produced beers like Bud and Miller, then you can move up the scale to something like Sam Adams, and up to Guinness and whatever.
My brewer dwarf should be taken by fey moods to make awesome beer!
Alternatively, I'll try pumping some magma on top of a river and try to make an obsidian road.
You could search through the world-seeds on the wiki and find a coastal magma pipe. I had one once.
an elf caravan went past it, angering a fire imp.
Now, I live on a mountain surrounded by smoldering ashes. It's very intersting watching a fire burn across an entire map.