Minedcrafts - a Dwarf Fortress Succession Game!

[Omega124]

Omega, the next wave is in the spring or summer, so I'll have totally no control over that.

Well, please make me the first Speardwarf when you get him/her (Gender is not an object, but I perfer male), whoever you are.

 

[mythmonster2]

Adamantine? Hellz yeah!

 

[woot7]

hey dave s could you give someone else my dwarf, i want to dwarf my self in the migrant wave

cheers

 

[Cowabungaa]

Bloody hell, we're in year two and we've already found adamantite. This game better not go too smooth.

And what are you walling the caverns off for? I usually liked them as scavenging grounds.

 

[Newbunkle]

That's a lot of dwarves. Good job I'm on hand to provide food for everyone (assuming I'm still alive, lol).

I used to nickname all my dwarves, giving each wave names from the same source, such as superheroes, resident evil characters, muppets, etc. but those huge waves really make things difficult. I tried using pokemon names for a while, but that got boring very quickly (except when charmander decapitated squirtle - who says water beats fire?). Now I only nickname the original seven and a few special characters.

I used to nickname them to remind myself which ones I'd checked out and assigned jobs to. I used to be very fussy about making every dwarf do something useful. These days I tend to relax more and leave most of them doing whatever they like. I only make small adjustments when I really need more dwarves with a particular skill. It makes my fortress horribly inefficient at times, but its not like there's a prize for winning.

 

[Double A]

But it's dwarf fortress. If it's not horribly inefficient, you're DOING IT WRONG.

 

[Duke Blackstone]

Will DF work on mac? Looks amazing.

 

[Newbunkle]

Will DF work on mac? Looks amazing.

It looks like it might - there's a mac link on the downloads page.*

BTW everyone, 0.31.19 was released today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

*If it works, you might be needing these:
Wiki, Youtube Tutorials, Tutorial Blog (both use tilesets), and enough patience to get over the initial learning curve. And if in doubt, reading the story of Boatmurdered might inspire you to keep trying.

 

[Double A]

HOLY CRAP, .19!?

edit: just read Toady's post. After my nerdgasm, I realized .19 wouldn't be compatible with .18. In other words, if you plan on playing the save in the future, keep your .18 version.

Will DF work on mac? Looks amazing.

You need at least Snow Leopard for OS, as well as Intel Inside.

 

[Duke Blackstone]

Actually it appears to work for a MacBook Pro, Leopard OS, and Intel. already with a new tile pack. This is sooo awesome. dont think its compatible with yals version though. Could yal add me in as a Dwarf?

EDIT: Starting my first game, no directions so exciting. And I have NO idea how to play except that you need to irrigate. Dont know how to do that either. Let ya know how long I last.

 

[Double A]

I meant your OS had to be Snow Leopard or newer.

 

[Duke Blackstone]

Its not but its still working, which is making me very happy this game is awesome. I gave up on building a fortress and am now just wondering around as a character killing things.

 

[Newbunkle]

EDIT: Starting my first game, no directions so exciting. And I have NO idea how to play except that you need to irrigate. Dont know how to do that either. Let ya know how long I last.

I'll give you a hint of what to do first, but I'll spoilerize™ it to avoid derailing the thread

Spoiler :

1. Use the Designations menu (d) to tell your guys where to dig/cut trees etc. Stairs are tricky because you need two sets on different levels that line up. Use Shift + "<" or ">" to scroll up or down through levels.

2. Use the Stockpiles menu (p) to mark areas for storing items. Early ones you might need are an outdoor refuse pile (r) for smelly junk, and a wood pile (w) near your base for all those cut trees.

3. Use the Building menu (b) to place pre-constructed furniture or make workshops (w) etc. If you started the game with the default team, you'll need a Fishery workshop (h) for your fishcleaner to process your fisherman's catch.

4. Learn to use the Look (k) feature to examine things, and the Units (v) feature to look at a a dwarf's skills, wounds, labours, etc.

5. Learn to use the Job menu (j) to see what everyone is doing (or not doing). You can use this menu to jump to dwarves you need to find.

6. Learn to use the Building Preferences feature (q) to change the properties of workshops, stockpiles, doors, tables, chairs, you name it.

From there you can look at what's going on and find out why your dwarves are all dying. Here are the steps I would take for setting up a new base:

- Dig out your base and chop some wood.
- Set up a fishery (if necessary).
- Build a carpenter's workshop and make some beds (which can only be made from wood)
- If you have stone, build a mason's workshop as well.
- Make doors, chairs/thrones, and tables out of wood or stone.
- Make some spare barrels and bins out of wood (you don't have metal yet)
- Set some stockpiles underground for all the crap from your wagon (a custom one that allows everything except corpses and refuse might be useful temporarily)
- Use doors and beds to make bedrooms (or one big dorm if you're lazy).
- Use tables and chairs to make a dining hall. Doors will help to mark where the room ends as well.
Remember: make the furniture at a workshop first, then use the building menu to place it.
Also: Use the Building Preferences menu (q) to tell a bed to be used as a bedroom (individual or dorm), and a table to be used as a dining hall.
- Get a farm set up, and then a still.

Congratulations, now you won't die (until you're attacked). Getting the essentials up and running will allow you to fail at tinker and experiment with the other features.

Since you mentioned farm irrigation, I'll give a little extra info on that:

Dwarf plants require underground farms, and farm plots need to be built on mud. You can leave mud on a floor by flooding it and allowing the water to drain away/evaporate.

Later you might use floodgates and levers to carefully irrigate farms, but there is a rough method you can use to get going.

Dig the room for your farm near a small pool of water (not a river, as the water is infinite!), leaving a single wall between the pool and the farm room.

Once the room is dug out, use the designations menu (d) to channel (h) out the wall from above. The water will flow into the room and thin out, eventually evaporating. Mud will be left behind for your farm plot, but don't try smoothing the floor or the dwarves will clean the mud away.

The only problem now is that you've got a hole that animals and goblins can use to enter your base. Use the building menu (b), the construction sub-menu (capital C), and then "wall" (w) to construct a new wall from some wood or stone.

That should sort you out for now. You'll need to make some fancy plumbing to get water down to deeper levels. And if your only water source is a river, then read up on floogates, levers, and mechanisms to control the flooding. Or, gather some wild plants and use the foreign seeds to make an above-ground farm, which doesn't require irrigation.

 

[Duke Blackstone]

Wow.. Thanks for the help.. Do I have to do all of that or will my dwarves take care of some of it automaticly?

 

[Double A]

The only thing dwarves do automatically (besides eat, drink, sleep, and go crazy) is provide the labor, you have to order all of it first.

 

[mythmonster2]

So .19 is not compatible with .18?

 

[Newbunkle]

Wow.. Thanks for the help.. Do I have to do all of that or will my dwarves take care of some of it automaticly?

More spoilerization™:

Spoiler :

The short answer is maybe.

It depends on the job, and what your dwarves are allowed to do. If you examine your dwarves with the units command (v), you can use the labour section to forbid or permit them to do specific tasks. They won't do anything at all if nobody has permission to do it.

Tip: Farms usually work better if you turn off the farmer's other labours. Then they won't run off to move furniture while your seeds sit unplanted.

Some jobs like miner and woodcutter also need the proper tools. The default team comes with a spare pick and axe, if you want to get some idle dwarves to help out.

Many jobs are automated. Dwarves will haul rubbish and goods around. Some workshops also operate automatically by default, like the fishery. Dwarves with the correct labours enabled will automatically render fat at a kitchen, tan hides at a tannery, and so on.

In general, the ones you need to order are the optional ones. Carpenter's won't use up your wood making furniture unless you tell them what to make. Miners won't dig unless you mark areas for digging. But once given orders, the dwarves should do it themselves.

 

[Double A]

So .19 is not compatible with .18?

Toady added lots and lots of new stuff, including wagons. Some things might change, but I have no way of knowing the full effects. It's better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Double A]

Hellooooo?

 

[DaveShack]

DaveShack falls into a very deep sleep. He dreams of a weird place where metalsmiths have crafted the finest steel, precious metals, and other strange materials into a "vehicle" that can travel many times faster than the fastest creatures alive, even faster than the mythical demons who are said to inhabit the deepest parts of the earth. His dream turns to a nightmare as his personal vehicle begins to act very strangely. Frantically he exhorts the most skilled mechanics to repair it, to no avail. Finally he is forced to abandon the "vehicle" and acquire another, pledging the fruits of future work to pay for it.

Nightmare over, DaveShack wakes. It is the beginning of summer. "Wow, that was quite some night" he mutters to himself as he prepares to refresh his memory of the state of the fortress. He is certain that there are constructions to be built, labors to be ordered, and ores to be mined. Thus begins another season of endless toil to the glory of Armok