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DWARF FORTRESS - For real this time. - This topic is for you (yes YOU)
- Thread starter GDJustin
- Start date
platypotamus
Member
Since I won't really have time until Friday, he's got until Thursday night to post his turn, otherwise I will. Either way, goal will be to post my turn by the end of the weekend.
SirPenguin
Member
Oi, alright, one last time I guess.
http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/
High Value Factors
-Random Environment Generation? Check
Permafailure (including Permadeath)? Check
-Turn Based Interaction? Not in fortress mode
-Single command set? Check
-Freedom? Check
Middle Value Factors
-Discovery mechanics? Half-check (most of the world information is hidden from you until you discover it yourself via an adventurer talking to people, exploring, etc. However, items are not randomized save for artifacts)
-Single player? Not in Fortress mode
-Lots of content? Check
-Complex non-trivial world and object interactions? Check
Low Value Factors
-High ramped difficulty? Check
-Monsters are players? Check
-Character-based display? Check
-Hack and Slash? Not in Fortress mode
I'd like to point out the "Hack and Slash" is a low valued factor
Now I'd definitely be willing to acknowledge a more proper definition might be "City Builder/Roguelike hybrid", and in no way am I saying DF is a TRADITIONAL roguelike. But if you laid out a giant list of genres and you checked off each attribute Dwarf Fortress has under each genre...you will see more checks under "roguelike" than under any other genre. And that's how I personally define a game under a genre.
As for Woo Fu: you are a very unpleasant person to have a conversation with. I have nothing more to say to you or add to this discussion because you seem to lack even the most basic of social tact
http://www.roguetemple.com/roguelike-definition/
High Value Factors
-Random Environment Generation? Check
Permafailure (including Permadeath)? Check
-Turn Based Interaction? Not in fortress mode
-Single command set? Check
-Freedom? Check
Middle Value Factors
-Discovery mechanics? Half-check (most of the world information is hidden from you until you discover it yourself via an adventurer talking to people, exploring, etc. However, items are not randomized save for artifacts)
-Single player? Not in Fortress mode
-Lots of content? Check
-Complex non-trivial world and object interactions? Check
Low Value Factors
-High ramped difficulty? Check
-Monsters are players? Check
-Character-based display? Check
-Hack and Slash? Not in Fortress mode
I'd like to point out the "Hack and Slash" is a low valued factor
Now I'd definitely be willing to acknowledge a more proper definition might be "City Builder/Roguelike hybrid", and in no way am I saying DF is a TRADITIONAL roguelike. But if you laid out a giant list of genres and you checked off each attribute Dwarf Fortress has under each genre...you will see more checks under "roguelike" than under any other genre. And that's how I personally define a game under a genre.
As for Woo Fu: you are a very unpleasant person to have a conversation with. I have nothing more to say to you or add to this discussion because you seem to lack even the most basic of social tact
Woo-Fu
Banned
Nothing, at least not in the current version.Yaweee said:
There are downsides to doing so, though.
1. no trading
2. cut off from all surface resources
3. ignores the opportunity to profit from the siege itself by killing all of the bastards and melting down their armor and weapons. Marksdwarfs gain exp much faster killing things than they do shooting at the archery ranges too. A couple fully-contained sieges will turn a marksdwarf into a champion.
4. All those extra units on the map hurt performance.
Sieges can last multiple seasons, best to end them quickly if you have any good way of doing so.
Woo-Fu
Banned
SirPenguin said:
The same place you're using for your definition does not consider Dwarf Fortress Fortress mode to be a roguelike. Hmm, DF is in their database, but they don't specify mode.
They share a database with rogue basin and rogue basin doesn't list any DF updates.
Every roguelike I've ever played involves a single character or a small party whose ultimate goal is to get to the bottom of whatever dungeon the game features, again, nothing like fortress mode of DF. They're role-playing games every one of them, and DF Fortress mode is not a roleplay game. The last rogue-like I played heavily is Stone Soup, which is pretty good if anybody is interested in that genre.
One wonders why DF even has an adventure mode if Fortress Mode is already a rogue-like.
What does that make Adventure mode? Rogue-Rogue-like?From the Bay 12 Games website, bolding mine:
One of those descriptions is a rogue-like. The other is a sim. One of them describes Fortress Mode, the other describes Adventure Mode.
SirPenguin
Member
TheOneGuy said:
Yeah, basically everything that happens in Adventurer mode happens in Fortress mode in the exact same way. The way attributes work, how you gain skill levels, combat, everything, which only adds to the whole roguelike argument. The only difference is that you now control several dorfs instead of one party and the focus is more on city building. If you pause and "step" through everything (like you said) it becomes more or less a turn-based game again
but in the interest of fairness I decided that was a little TOO different to count
Lonewolf_92
Member
GDJustin said:
Can't agree with you there Justin, by that definition, the Wizardry series and all other pure dungeon crawlers would fall under the genre of Rogue-like, which I'm sure noone would agree with. Both Dungeon Crawler and Rogue-Like exist as subgenres of the RPG genre, and while there are similarities between the two, they are seperate enties. The defining characteristic of Rogue-likes are the randomization for replayability and strict death/limited save features. In my opinion, DF is a rogue-like in much the same way the Harvest Moon series is a RPG or dating sim, there is just enough similarities (as SirPenguin pointed out) that one could say "It's like a rogue-like but..." to someone as a shorthand way of explaining the game to them.
While I agree that this genre discussion is interesting, lets all keep calm heads and discuss things like adults. We ALL love us some Dwarf Fortress here, and this thread is to promote the game to new players, no need for us to snip at each other about playing styles or genre opinions and give the DF community a bad name, right?
I'd refute it from the other direction: ToeJam & Earl has nothing to do with dungeons, but is undeniably a roguelike. Silly discussion though, if you ask me. Strict genre classifications are overrated.Lonewolf_92 said:
I'll see if I can't get a fort going somewhere more interesting to help fuel the thread in other directions.
Woo-Fu
Banned
Rogue-likes are role-playing games, every single one of them. You assume a role and directly control the actions of your avatar.
DF Fortress Mode you do none of that, there is no role-play, there is no avatar, there is no direct character control. It is a god-game, along the lines of Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Civ.
What is the base meaning of Rogue-Like? It means like the game Rogue. Angband, nethack, moria, stone soup, etc. are very much like the game Rogue. DF Fortress mode is very much unlike any of those games. It plays completely differently. I think that is what bugs me with people calling the game a Rogue-like. I've played all those games and they all play pretty much the same and DF Fortress mode isn't even remotely like them in terms of gameplay.
One other thing, people who bring up the characters used for graphics are missing the irony that the game is not curses, it is fully OpenGL. They also miss the irony that the rogue-like with the greatest commercial success is isometric, with tiled environments, again not curses. Rogue-likes got their start on terminals and most of them have stayed that way so that they can be played on a variety of *nix systems directly within a basic shell, even over slow links without any GUI whatsoever. Moria was my first Rogue-like, indeed my first real UNIX experience, I compiled it myself on a Sun workstation in 1987 just so I could have the wizard password. Try running DF over a telnet session and let us know how it works---it doesn't---rogue, moria, and nethack work just fine that way. Simply put, DF uses characters as graphics because a) the game is largely created by one person who is a programmer, not an artist, and b) tile support was intended pretty much from day one from what I can tell. Toady put the framework in place for other people to come along and create the graphic art.
When you get right down to it, the only thing DF Fortress Mode really has in common with any of the rogue-likes is that you control it primarily with the keyboard. Gee, how many game genres on PC also share that distinction?
This is of course is just my opinion, one based upon having played Rogue-likes for 22 years and DF Fortress mode for 2 years, YMMV.
DF Fortress Mode you do none of that, there is no role-play, there is no avatar, there is no direct character control. It is a god-game, along the lines of Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Civ.
What is the base meaning of Rogue-Like? It means like the game Rogue. Angband, nethack, moria, stone soup, etc. are very much like the game Rogue. DF Fortress mode is very much unlike any of those games. It plays completely differently. I think that is what bugs me with people calling the game a Rogue-like. I've played all those games and they all play pretty much the same and DF Fortress mode isn't even remotely like them in terms of gameplay.
One other thing, people who bring up the characters used for graphics are missing the irony that the game is not curses, it is fully OpenGL. They also miss the irony that the rogue-like with the greatest commercial success is isometric, with tiled environments, again not curses. Rogue-likes got their start on terminals and most of them have stayed that way so that they can be played on a variety of *nix systems directly within a basic shell, even over slow links without any GUI whatsoever. Moria was my first Rogue-like, indeed my first real UNIX experience, I compiled it myself on a Sun workstation in 1987 just so I could have the wizard password.
Try running DF over a telnet session and let us know how it works---it doesn't---rogue, moria, and nethack work just fine that way. Simply put, DF uses characters as graphics because a) the game is largely created by one person who is a programmer, not an artist, and b) tile support was intended pretty much from day one from what I can tell. Toady put the framework in place for other people to come along and create the graphic art.When you get right down to it, the only thing DF Fortress Mode really has in common with any of the rogue-likes is that you control it primarily with the keyboard. Gee, how many game genres on PC also share that distinction?
This is of course is just my opinion, one based upon having played Rogue-likes for 22 years and DF Fortress mode for 2 years, YMMV.
Woo-Fu
Banned
If people try it because they've been misled to expect rogue-like gameplay they're going to end up disappointed. There is a silver lining to that cloud, though, as they can switch to Adventure Mode and actually get Rogue-Like gameplay.Mekere said:
When people blatantly misrepresent a game I enjoy, I typically feel the need to speak up.
SirPenguin
Member
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_now.html
Heh, I was one of those people worrying. It's been close to two weeks since Toady has answered any questions on the forums in the Future of the Fortress thread, which is weird. It's also been almost a month since the guy has "greened" any of goals in the dev list topic. I guess he's just been working on a big HFS change, but I can't help but feel like the guy is losing steam...
ZombieSupaStar
Member
TheOneGuy said:
i wish hed just hand off the whole graphics engine to someone though,
sprites are fine, but imagine link to the past sized sprites or something, would be awesome...r
even though the game is in ascii, its really fake ascii, as in opengl tiles, that jut have letters on them, not actual fonts.
What do you mean "link to the past sized sprites"?
I do agree, though... sort of.
The custom tilesets as they are now, I think are fine. But I'd love to see something more realized, more seamless... if it could be done.
EDIT: OH. Like Zelda LttP. Right! Yeah, that'd be cool. (But maybe too big, what with all the crap on the screen already.)
I do agree, though... sort of.
The custom tilesets as they are now, I think are fine. But I'd love to see something more realized, more seamless... if it could be done.
EDIT: OH. Like Zelda LttP. Right! Yeah, that'd be cool. (But maybe too big, what with all the crap on the screen already.)
SirPenguin
Member
DF Talk number 3 is up
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html
I'm only about 15 minutes in, but already Toady is settling at least one debate. He talks at length about how much he loves for players to lose, and a big goal of this release is to bring a lot more danger and ways of dieing to the player. Basically he wants to see a fort "squeezed" from within and without
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/df_talk.html
I'm only about 15 minutes in, but already Toady is settling at least one debate. He talks at length about how much he loves for players to lose, and a big goal of this release is to bring a lot more danger and ways of dieing to the player. Basically he wants to see a fort "squeezed" from within and without
SpinningFrog
Member
So I've enjoyed playing the game, finally got around to working out how to smelt/forge and make armor and weapons and such which is pretty fun, but I had a question.
Anyone know if it's possible to turn off the need for food/drink? Don't get me wrong I enjoy all the aspects of the game but I want to focus on trying to build an awesome fort/mega construction without having to worry about food. Is it possible? If not I'll just go back to creating a huge stockpile of food/drink.
Anyone know if it's possible to turn off the need for food/drink? Don't get me wrong I enjoy all the aspects of the game but I want to focus on trying to build an awesome fort/mega construction without having to worry about food. Is it possible? If not I'll just go back to creating a huge stockpile of food/drink.
SirPenguin said:
Well, he's making pretty good money, but even that is not enough motivation sometimes. I'm sure he could start a small gaming company and hire a few additional programmers if he wanted. With that said, it's probably not worth the effort of getting it setup and getting the new programmers trained up.
I still haven't found time at home to play a single session of Dwarf Fortress but I love reading about it. I started listening to this DF Talk because I heard the creator is a bit of a nutcase and I am not disappointed. The song he makes for his cat at 33:40 is absolutely stunning. It makes it even better because the other two people that are talking just completely ignore it like it isn't absolutely insane.SirPenguin said:
SirPenguin
Member
Wrekt said:
Yeah, he's nuts. And like, it's a harmless type of insanity. It's closer to "eccentric" or "strange" than, say, weird, you know? And he's better than he was before. He used to sleep days and work nights. He has no friends, no wife or girlfriend. The only people he ever talks to are his brother and parents.
Most of the cat stuff is fan service. The official forums are in love with him. Like, I know the other two guys seemingly ignore it, but in the 2nd DF Talk they asked him to "serenade" Scamps at the end. Yeah.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
SpinningFrog
Member
You can't actually play in that mode right? Looks quite nice.
Lonewolf_92
Member
ZombieSupaStar said:
That is seriously cool!
platypotamus
Member
Downloaded the fortress for the succession game and looked at it a bit. Thinking pretty hard about forging some aluminum weapons to hold us over for the time being. We have neither iron nor flux stone so far. Definitely have some surveying in my future.
The biggest pain is going to be a dramatic stimulus/employment package for the dwarves. Too many aren't working nearly hard enough.
The biggest pain is going to be a dramatic stimulus/employment package for the dwarves. Too many aren't working nearly hard enough.
SirPenguin
Member
I compiled a lit of the DF Talk highlights if anyone is interested. There is seriously a gigantic amount of new information we just learned...
http://dwarffortress.com/2009/10/16/highlights-from-the-dwarf-fortress-talk-3/
http://dwarffortress.com/2009/10/16/highlights-from-the-dwarf-fortress-talk-3/
The new stuff sounds awesome. Thanks for the write up SirPenguin.
I was wondering is Toady ever going to add enemies with picks so that they can dig? Let's say you build your fortress wealth up really high and wall yourself in from the outside. You think your safe but then some dark dwarfs, or something like that, come digging in and start stealing your stuff from the bottom.
In addition to that maybe make it so that the enemies can build stuff. So you get some goblin raids and they can't seem to get to you. You have a lot of traps, a moat or something and they just can't get in. So they stop trying and instead build a fort, out of stone they brought with them or maybe they cut down some trees and use that. Then they build up and start farming and growing a population. Once they get big enough they build bridges or siege weapons and brake in. Of course this would not work now unless we all got super computers to handle the load, but maybe it's something Toady could look in to. Maybe hunters and fishers actually have a good use, as full time scouts, instead of just killing themselves and littering the ground with corpses of game and fish they don't bring back because they are scared by something. Some stuff so that you have to watch the outside even if you block it off.
Also it would be cool if he or some mod added an online feature so that you could have a game that exists in the same world at the same time and what happens in one region would affect the others, open up new trade routes, provide new enemies. An example would be someone opens a cavern and something evil escapes from it and goes to another region. Maybe make it so you could trade with others and even send some dwarfs off to another persons region to help protect it, or steal some stuff. Have it so that adventure can be played in the world as well. I can see it now some jackass comes in and kills all your farmers, or some other easy to kill but very important dwarfs, and your whole fortress dies of hunger. I don't even know how you would get that to work though, the game would have to go slow and you just tell your dwarfs what to do and leave, or I don't know. That doesn't sound that great, it would take forever for anything to happen. Oh well it won't happen anyway.
Well it's easy to come up with stuff actually putting it in the game is another story. Oh, another thing, disease. Make it so if you leave corpses around they develop bacteria. Then it spreads to other things and mutates, kills dwarfs, animals and trees. Contaminates the water and land making it hard to grow stuff. Maybe in advance cases it could cause zombies to spring from the corpses of the dead and dead plants. Yeah zombie trees, ha ha ha.
I was wondering is Toady ever going to add enemies with picks so that they can dig? Let's say you build your fortress wealth up really high and wall yourself in from the outside. You think your safe but then some dark dwarfs, or something like that, come digging in and start stealing your stuff from the bottom.
In addition to that maybe make it so that the enemies can build stuff. So you get some goblin raids and they can't seem to get to you. You have a lot of traps, a moat or something and they just can't get in. So they stop trying and instead build a fort, out of stone they brought with them or maybe they cut down some trees and use that. Then they build up and start farming and growing a population. Once they get big enough they build bridges or siege weapons and brake in. Of course this would not work now unless we all got super computers to handle the load, but maybe it's something Toady could look in to. Maybe hunters and fishers actually have a good use, as full time scouts, instead of just killing themselves and littering the ground with corpses of game and fish they don't bring back because they are scared by something. Some stuff so that you have to watch the outside even if you block it off.
Also it would be cool if he or some mod added an online feature so that you could have a game that exists in the same world at the same time and what happens in one region would affect the others, open up new trade routes, provide new enemies. An example would be someone opens a cavern and something evil escapes from it and goes to another region. Maybe make it so you could trade with others and even send some dwarfs off to another persons region to help protect it, or steal some stuff. Have it so that adventure can be played in the world as well. I can see it now some jackass comes in and kills all your farmers, or some other easy to kill but very important dwarfs, and your whole fortress dies of hunger. I don't even know how you would get that to work though, the game would have to go slow and you just tell your dwarfs what to do and leave, or I don't know. That doesn't sound that great, it would take forever for anything to happen. Oh well it won't happen anyway.
Well it's easy to come up with stuff actually putting it in the game is another story. Oh, another thing, disease. Make it so if you leave corpses around they develop bacteria. Then it spreads to other things and mutates, kills dwarfs, animals and trees. Contaminates the water and land making it hard to grow stuff. Maybe in advance cases it could cause zombies to spring from the corpses of the dead and dead plants. Yeah zombie trees, ha ha ha.
Woo-Fu
Banned
Ember128 said:
Search for ARTIFACTS in
$DF_INSTALL_DIR/data/init/init.txt
and change that line to:
[ARTIFACTS=NO]
As far as the people crying for "better" graphics, my computer finds DF challenging enough as it is, even with the great strides its OpenGL performance has made. You guys should try out Tropico 3. DF, just with humans. You have lots of the same issues, food, military, production, housing, diplomacy, etc. You even have an on-screen avatar in the game, which I suppose would make some people consider it even more of a rogue-like than DF Fortress mode. :lol
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Woo-Fu said:
i would say df is pretty cpu bound, so wouldnt better graphics really not hinder it much?
Joseph Merrick
Member
woah. that looks greatZombieSupaStar said:
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Woo-Fu said:
do you know if DF is multithreaded?
SirPenguin said:
Great write-up. Thanks very much for putting it together.
Sooo pumped for the new version. It really sounds like it's going to take some serious getting used to, though. Just like when the game switched to 3D, at first some people didn't like it, but eventually we all understood how it was undeniably superior.
My sense is that at first it will annoy us to not have layers and layers of pure stone to make our forts exactly according to plan. What if you intended to put your bedrooms in one area, but it turns out there's a big lake there? That sort of thing.
My hunch is that our forts will have to become more naturalistic and free-form - we'll have to adapt our layouts based on what we find underground.
So good
Edit: I'm not 100% positive here, but I *think* that part of the problem with DF's performance is that it is only programmed to use one CPU core, right now. As CPU architecture moves to 4, 8, 16-core CPUs, but individual cores don't become faster, it spells some trouble for longterm DF performance.
platypotamus
Member
Yeah, i totally can't wait for the new version. I loved hearing about all the crazy dangers that seem to be in store for us.
Sword Familiar
178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
I've been lurking in this thread for quite some time now and am seriously considering taking the plunge into the world of Dwarf Fortress, but I'm not sure I have any time to spare. :/
Just how time consuming is it?
Just how time consuming is it?
SirPenguin
Member
^^^Learning the game is definitely time consuming. It's a lot of trial-and-error type deals. Playing the game itself is like any sandbox game...you can play it for 10 minutes or 10 hours.
Yeah, definitely the vibe I got as well. One idea he kept coming back to was this notion of exploring your fort before you can really lay down the foundations. And that's a very pleasing idea, at least on paper. It makes the world feel more alive, more natural. Right now the underground is more or less a blank canvas for us to draw on. That's neat and has its advantages, no doubt, but it seems artificial and too game-y.
Also, caverns won't always be filled with nasties. Sometimes you might stumble across features, like a huge mushroom forest...then you can simple carve out some room for carpenter workshops and some wood stockpiles and maybe even make it a "Woodcutter" burrow and you'll all set
Yeah, definitely the vibe I got as well. One idea he kept coming back to was this notion of exploring your fort before you can really lay down the foundations. And that's a very pleasing idea, at least on paper. It makes the world feel more alive, more natural. Right now the underground is more or less a blank canvas for us to draw on. That's neat and has its advantages, no doubt, but it seems artificial and too game-y.
Also, caverns won't always be filled with nasties. Sometimes you might stumble across features, like a huge mushroom forest...then you can simple carve out some room for carpenter workshops and some wood stockpiles and maybe even make it a "Woodcutter" burrow and you'll all set
platypotamus
Member
Owwwww. Head. Pain. oof. What did I drink last night? Scratch that. What did I drink last week? Last season? Last year? Last couple years? Last thing I remember I was invited to a party by my Bone Carving buddy...
Wait, no... something's coming back. After a year, maybe two, the party, it turned into a funeral.
*sniff* *sniff* I don't do well at funerals. Especially for the original party cow Glurms McGlenzie. No, I've got to be strong, I got it all out at the funeral. I must have, anyway, I don't really remember. I should probably get back to work.
First I have to remember what my job is. And really... who I am. Good thing I keep a little notecard in my beard for just these situations. Here we are:
Hmm yes, Platypotamus. Sounds familiar. Ecstatic lately? I guess I got over Glurms' untimely demise sometime during that funeral.
Yeah, now that I think about it, Glurms' cage was pretty nice.
wat
So it was one of THOSE kinds of funerals huh? Well hell. What else happened that I should know about? And what's the odd badge I'm wearing?
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. They got me with the old "noble badge at the bottom of the mug of ale" trick. I've got to help run this place for the next year? Really? Me? Whoo boy. This place is in for it. Right after I have another couple of ales.
(Actual assessment of current situation + plans for the year coming later today. Hope to play through spring today and have that update ready tomorrow).
Wait, no... something's coming back. After a year, maybe two, the party, it turned into a funeral.
*sniff* *sniff* I don't do well at funerals. Especially for the original party cow Glurms McGlenzie. No, I've got to be strong, I got it all out at the funeral. I must have, anyway, I don't really remember. I should probably get back to work.
First I have to remember what my job is. And really... who I am. Good thing I keep a little notecard in my beard for just these situations. Here we are:
Hmm yes, Platypotamus. Sounds familiar. Ecstatic lately? I guess I got over Glurms' untimely demise sometime during that funeral.
Yeah, now that I think about it, Glurms' cage was pretty nice.
wat
So it was one of THOSE kinds of funerals huh? Well hell. What else happened that I should know about? And what's the odd badge I'm wearing?
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. They got me with the old "noble badge at the bottom of the mug of ale" trick. I've got to help run this place for the next year? Really? Me? Whoo boy. This place is in for it. Right after I have another couple of ales.
(Actual assessment of current situation + plans for the year coming later today. Hope to play through spring today and have that update ready tomorrow).
Sword Familiar
178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
SirPenguin said:
Great! I've got nothing against a steep learning curve, I was just afraid it was one of those "play now or your dwarves will suffer" kind of games. Maybe I'll try it out.
SirPenguin
Member
Bwahahahha @ latest update. I literally laughed at loud when I reached the "Recently became a parent"
platypotamus
Member
Alright well, I'm not happy about my recent so-called promotion. As part of my duties, I'll be keeping a thorough log of my life, and I feel compelled to clarify a few things for the non-dwarves who may be reading this in the years to come. We don't like nobles. Humans look at nobles and thing "oh, look at the majestic king and the beautiful queen." Dwarves look at nobles and think things like, "Poor sod was too worthless to do any real work," or "Its bad enough that (s)he's got to wear that ridiculous getup, but we really make it worse by forcing them to trim their beards like that. Do we go to far?" Or even "That's the the bastard! Get him!"
So naturally, many dwarves who are tricked, bamboozled, or hoodwinked into nobility consider the most sensible approach to the problem to be laying low. Just keep your head down (note: this idiom has a slightly more respectable connotation among dwarves!), and slog through your term of office, and things will get better.
Not me.
It might be the ale talking, it might be the new sense of responsibility that comes from being a parent (I should probably go meet my kid at some point, now that I think about it), or it might be the fact that it seems likely that them goblins are going to cause more trouble, but there's going to be some changes on my watch.
Status report, dwarven minion! What's that? I don't get minions? Bloody hell.
Well, a couple of things jump out at me right away.
- no meat.
- 48 "Other Animals"
Well, there's one problem solved. (Also of note, we have a crapload of untrained dogs, and no kennel or trainer yet. So that's a priority for me as well).
- Food stores look strong.
- Military isn't bad numbers-wise, but equippage is pretty terrible.
- 20 damn kids! We better not have any more funerals or this place is going to turn into a full fledged nursery.
- 11 Metalsmiths, but only one forge so far, and barely any metal? Definitely need some more exploratory mining happening.
Looking over some other records, I see we've got a trouble maker in our little community:
Failed to get his work done. A quick interview reveals that he claims to have had a valid excuse: a funeral for some Glurms McGlenzie. Likely story. I'll have to keep an eye on this "Kib", I wouldn't want him to start some sort of elven touchey feely "we don't need to work" movement or some--
Oh no. It's started already. 32 dwarves... almost a third of our population is showing elven sympathies. This cannot stand. Any good dwarf knows that the elven menaces, while usually not as directly dangerous as the goblins, is a far more insidious menace. If they gain majority control of Fightanus, we'll all be beardless naked ninnies living in treehouses. These dwarves must be put to work, and we must ensure that the elves' propaganda does not gain further hold.
Surely my predecessor was trying to do something about this, what orders had he left for the fortress?
I see. They got to him too. I'm in a panic now. How high does this conspiracy go?
Not to Kogan! He's currently skipping around and tra-la-la-ing to himself while gathering materials for some sort of project. If I see so much as a single tree on the product, he's getting clapped in irons so his heresy doesn't spread.
So the time has come for my official...
TODO LIST.
1. Tell the mayor to take a long walk off the short mine shaft. We have no gold currently, and he can go shave his beard.
2. Exploratory mining. If we find gold, then I'll take back those things that I said about the mayor and give him his baubles. If we find something useful, like iron, then that will lead directly to...
3. Outfit the military. We appear to have a good amount of bolts, but very few actual weapons, and I'd like to fix that pretty ASAP.
4. Massive work order for dwarves. Within 3 days, I want to see the number of idlers dropping into the single digits.
5. Some personal projects of mine.
5a. First, diversification of our farming operation and boozery. This may even include brewing up some surface items, though that's a risky undertaking that I'm not sure I'm willing to undertake.
5b. The well is something I think we need. This is another risky proposition, as I don't see an easily defensible way to get at fresh water at the moment, but as injured (and imprisoned?) dwarves aren't supposed to enjoy the finer things in life, it will be useful, particularly as our military starts training (and fighting?) with real weapons.
6. This is actually a higher priority, since I need this to do any real assigning and work, but I just realized it now.
7. Expanded living space. There may not be enough beds to go around at the moment, and that might be contributing to our explosive reproductive rate.
8. Butchering and training of animals where appropriate.
9. Aiding Kogan in his hopefully non-elven work, and then punishing him if it is in fact elven.
10. Generally doing everything I can to fight both the elven and goblin menaces.
Hopefully by the end of spring, most of these will be crossed out (or in progress), and some of my grander goals can be realized.
So naturally, many dwarves who are tricked, bamboozled, or hoodwinked into nobility consider the most sensible approach to the problem to be laying low. Just keep your head down (note: this idiom has a slightly more respectable connotation among dwarves!), and slog through your term of office, and things will get better.
Not me.
It might be the ale talking, it might be the new sense of responsibility that comes from being a parent (I should probably go meet my kid at some point, now that I think about it), or it might be the fact that it seems likely that them goblins are going to cause more trouble, but there's going to be some changes on my watch.
Status report, dwarven minion! What's that? I don't get minions? Bloody hell.
Well, a couple of things jump out at me right away.
- no meat.
- 48 "Other Animals"
Well, there's one problem solved. (Also of note, we have a crapload of untrained dogs, and no kennel or trainer yet. So that's a priority for me as well).
- Food stores look strong.
- Military isn't bad numbers-wise, but equippage is pretty terrible.
- 20 damn kids! We better not have any more funerals or this place is going to turn into a full fledged nursery.
- 11 Metalsmiths, but only one forge so far, and barely any metal? Definitely need some more exploratory mining happening.
Looking over some other records, I see we've got a trouble maker in our little community:
Failed to get his work done. A quick interview reveals that he claims to have had a valid excuse: a funeral for some Glurms McGlenzie. Likely story. I'll have to keep an eye on this "Kib", I wouldn't want him to start some sort of elven touchey feely "we don't need to work" movement or some--
Oh no. It's started already. 32 dwarves... almost a third of our population is showing elven sympathies. This cannot stand. Any good dwarf knows that the elven menaces, while usually not as directly dangerous as the goblins, is a far more insidious menace. If they gain majority control of Fightanus, we'll all be beardless naked ninnies living in treehouses. These dwarves must be put to work, and we must ensure that the elves' propaganda does not gain further hold.
Surely my predecessor was trying to do something about this, what orders had he left for the fortress?
I see. They got to him too. I'm in a panic now. How high does this conspiracy go?
Not to Kogan! He's currently skipping around and tra-la-la-ing to himself while gathering materials for some sort of project. If I see so much as a single tree on the product, he's getting clapped in irons so his heresy doesn't spread.
So the time has come for my official...
TODO LIST.
1. Tell the mayor to take a long walk off the short mine shaft. We have no gold currently, and he can go shave his beard.
2. Exploratory mining. If we find gold, then I'll take back those things that I said about the mayor and give him his baubles. If we find something useful, like iron, then that will lead directly to...
3. Outfit the military. We appear to have a good amount of bolts, but very few actual weapons, and I'd like to fix that pretty ASAP.
4. Massive work order for dwarves. Within 3 days, I want to see the number of idlers dropping into the single digits.
5. Some personal projects of mine.
5a. First, diversification of our farming operation and boozery. This may even include brewing up some surface items, though that's a risky undertaking that I'm not sure I'm willing to undertake.
5b. The well is something I think we need. This is another risky proposition, as I don't see an easily defensible way to get at fresh water at the moment, but as injured (and imprisoned?) dwarves aren't supposed to enjoy the finer things in life, it will be useful, particularly as our military starts training (and fighting?) with real weapons.
6. This is actually a higher priority, since I need this to do any real assigning and work, but I just realized it now.
7. Expanded living space. There may not be enough beds to go around at the moment, and that might be contributing to our explosive reproductive rate.
8. Butchering and training of animals where appropriate.
9. Aiding Kogan in his hopefully non-elven work, and then punishing him if it is in fact elven.
10. Generally doing everything I can to fight both the elven and goblin menaces.
Hopefully by the end of spring, most of these will be crossed out (or in progress), and some of my grander goals can be realized.