Dwarf Fortress

[Maniacal]

It is still an alpha version

I don't think it will ever be truly finished, it is basically Toady's child and it is extremely unlikely he will ever stop working on it until he is physically and/or mentally unable to do so.

 

[Luckymoose]

It is nearing beta, or so Toady leads people on, and I imagine it will be in beta in a couple of years.

 

[Polycrates]

Just thought I'd share this gem of a progress report for the new version from the front page:

I visited a tomb today as the adventurer Cadem Renownletter to see how well the game retains the position of skeletons and treasures as I move them around. During the process, a mummy boxed me in the ribs, broke my finger, bit my hand and shook it around until the hand came off. The mummy then animated the hand and they both attacked me. The hand scored the killing scratch, earning the name "Drippedsieged, Cadem Renownletter's left hand" and earning the tomb an additional defender against further testing. Its middle finger is still broken.

Sums up the glorious insanity of this game pretty well, I think.

 

[Maniacal]

Damn I love this game. I started playing again and it is addicting.

Also I am running out of room in my grave yards, if there isn't some forgotten beast running around outside my fort (which is safely built deep overground with an above ground fortress located at a fork in the river with a deep moat that I dug into one side making it an island) there seems to be bi-annual goblin ambushes. I also have a large and deep cistern which has several years worth of water stored in it and is easily refillable via floodgates and the river (also a new lake in the underground caverns due to the overflow, so if any forgotten ebast spawns there I'll flood it out).

On the plus side I have a tonne of free stuff from various caravans that were destroyed, but on the downside I now have three 10x7 rooms filled with coffins and a bronze colossus that is stuck in the river and scares all the dorfs away from that location (even though he is stuck). The minotaur earlier was also very deadly, it killed about 50 dwarves, elves, humans and goblins before it was chopped to little bits.

Thankfully my granite fortress is almost complete and I have set up some catapults.

 

[Luckymoose]

Setup burrows and only use peasants as haulers outside the fortress.

 

[Maniacal]

Oddly enough I have only gotten two peasants and both had adequate axe or sword kills and armour use so I drafted them into the army. However, once I am finished these new bedrooms I'm upping the pop limit from 100 dorfs so any new immigrants without any desirably skills already will just be drafted as haulers (I'm already turning off hauling for most of my skilled dorfs).

I haven't used burrows yet, I'll check those out.

 

[Luckymoose]

Burrows are key to getting a fortress secured and running efficiently when population gets above 50. It allows you to build zones, like a hospital wing or forge, that, with added apartments and food stockpiles, can keep the needed professionals nearest their needed locations at all times.

Also use Dwarf Therapist if you haven't yet, as it adds much ease to assigning jobs.

 

[TheDanish]

Whenever I play Minecraft, I always want something more complex and get the urge to play DF. But the learning cliff is extremely daunting :<

 

[Luckymoose]

Whenever I play Minecraft, I always want something more complex and get the urge to play DF. But the learning cliff is extremely daunting :<

It really isn't that bad.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Do you guys play with tile sets and whatnot or just the original ASCII?

 

[Luckymoose]

Do you guys play with tile sets and whatnot or just the original ASCII?

I play with ASCII unless I am running a community game, like the ones I run on the NESing forum. I prefer the simplistic and deep feeling of the ASCII.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah once you get the hang of DF it is pretty easy, same with EUIII and any other game really.

Do you guys play with tile sets and whatnot or just the original ASCII?

I use the Lazy Newb Pack which comes with three tile sets you can choose from pre-installed (Phoebus, Ironhand and Mayday). I think I am using Mayday's right now.

 

[Polycrates]

Yeah as long as you choose a forgiving embark location (low threat, non-extreme temperatures, fresh water, no aquifer, non-zero trees), the main game is now not so difficult to survive in the current version, and the tendency of fortresses to spiral into failure ala Boatmurdered is much reduced. If you can work out how to set up farms, you're past the biggest early obstacle, and you can almost then just learn at your own pace without too much worry about all your dwarves dying horribly.
The military stuff is confusing as well, but in a good start location you won't need that for a while down the track.
The key is the embark location though - you can still make it very hard for yourself if you choose to.

I play with ASCII unless I am running a community game, like the ones I run on the NESing forum. I prefer the simplistic and deep feeling of the ASCII.

For me the main problem with the ASCII, and I think it's a big one for this sort of game, is that the tiles are rectangular rather than square - so the sizes of things are all over the place depending on orientation and it's just very confusing. Plus I find the tilesets are just much easier to parse "at-a-glance", but maybe that's just that I never invested the time required to truly see the matrix.

 

[Double A]

Tilesets are too gimicky, and the walls confound me in a multitude of ways. The rectangles are annoying, though, I wish I knew the fix for it.

 

[Luckymoose]

Get a square ASCII set.

 

[Double A]

Too lazy to find one.

What I'm NOT too lazy to do is create a crocodile ceiling trap.

 

[Luckymoose]

Too lazy to find one.

What I'm NOT too lazy to do is create a crocodile ceiling trap.

Here.

 

[TheDanish]

Well, I just finished a tutorial and the game seems manageable. I think I'll be generating my own world soon, and I shall STRIKE THE EARTH!

 

[Samez]

Is there a mouse support in the latest version?
I tried DF a few years ago and somehow managed to get used to the ASCII but never got used to the keyboard only control.

 

[Luckymoose]

There has been mouse support for digging designations for years now. The majority of the game is keyboard based, like any good ASCII game.