First it chased a calf halfway across the map before giving up and turning around. Then as it approached the entrance to my fortress, my dorf champions took it head on. Three wrestlers. In the back, several marksdorfs (not champions) plugged away. They steered the hydra directly into a cage trap.
Hurray! Again!
I read that the dungeon master can tame a dragon. Can he tame Any megabeast?
Also is there any advantage to taming them, besides allowing them as pets?
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
What the hell is this fortress economy nonsense! AHHH!
This raunchy little baroness just rolls on up in here like she owns the place and brings with her some tax collector sumbitch and I'm just supposed to give up on communism forever?
WHERE'S MY ROBIN HOOD?!
EDIT: Four out of five posts on the new page. Aww yeah. I'll shut up now. It's just this is all new to me, the longest my fortress has ever lasted. D:
What the hell is this fortress economy nonsense! AHHH!
This raunchy little baroness just rolls on up in here like she owns the place and brings with her some tax collector sumbitch and I'm just supposed to give up on communism forever?
WHERE'S MY ROBIN HOOD?!
EDIT: Four out of five posts on the new page. Aww yeah. I'll shut up now. It's just this is all new to me, the longest my fortress has ever lasted. D:
That really is incredible. I saw a fort a few months ago with a similar, albeit very different idea...he submerged a fort (using green glass) in lava. I'll see if I can find it
i know the basics (digging, z levels, moving goods, farming, brewing, stone polishing, etc).
right now im basically hitting the "figure out what all the shops do, and how they interact" wall...and the whole "military" side of things, I know how to make a squad, barracks, and activate, and I used to know how to make them wrestle (without weapons!).
Well, a couple months have passed, so it's time to update the ol' log book. Probably should have updated it sooner, but running a fortress is hard work, and I been busy. Let's run down the previously noted TODO list and see how things worked out.
platypotamus said:
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.
Big check mark there. He still wants his gold though. Jerk.
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...
This has begun, though it's been a bit of a backburner as I've had more important things for my miners to do (carving out my office, for one). The efforts so far have been pretty spectacularly failures. Here's the best we've got:
Not sure how much use we'll have for nickel in the days ahead, but I suppose its better than nothing.
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.
Lack of metal as slowed this a bit, but we've got a bowyer's shop and are making some placeholder wooden crossbows even as I log this. One of our two squads are converting into marksdwarves. There's a good chance a third squad will be drafted soon as well to compliment the...
4. Massive work order for dwarves. Within 3 days, I want to see the number of idlers dropping into the single digits.
Granted: There's technically a few more idlers hanging out at a party at the moment, but they're pretty likely to end up in the military soon.
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.
These personal projects are, oddly enough, turning into a single combined project, and I think the end result should be pretty positive. Too early to share details just yet, but if all goes well, we'll do some planting by mid summer.
6. This is actually a higher priority, since I need this to do any real assigning and work, but I just realized it now.
Here you can see me, lying in bed scribbling in my log (it helps me drift off to sleep). Got an office as well, and a dining room. The stonedorfs will be by in the morning to smooth, and then do some engraving the next day, so the other dwarfs running the place will stop looking down their beards at me. Careful observers will note that due to a mix up with the furniture haulers, my dining room currently features a bed rather than a table. I've been assured this will be cleared up asap.
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.
Well, after a closer examination of the animal list, there really wasn't much butchering to be done. We've got a fair amount of young animals, that still need to develop more delicious delicious meat. We do need to train these dogs though, and as such, a kennels has been ordered for. It isn't yet built though.
9. Aiding Kogan in his hopefully non-elven work, and then punishing him if it is in fact elven.
The rumors of Kogan's elven influence were greatly exaggerated. I've been attempting to convince him that we should place the idol near the brook as a warning to fish, but he claims it is too valuable.
10. Generally doing everything I can to fight both the elven and goblin menaces.
Well, this is the item that was the most interesting over the course of the past few months. There I was, minding my own business, when I get a disturbing report:
It took me several minutes to come out of the ensuing panic. I re-read the report several times. On the one hundredth and forty third reading, I finally noticed the word "caravan". They wanted to TRADE? Several weeks of grueling negotiations pass before I am convinced to let them into the fort to trade, as I had to make sure that they were not actually military agents on a covert operation. Just as I finally agree, and they begin unloading their goods, another missive from my scouts:
Well, it was here before. Apparently in the ensuing craziness I've misplaced it, but it said something about "An Ambush" and "Curse Them!". The came from the west, suddenly, ambushing one of our dear woodcutting dwarves (who managed to wound a couple before being killed, in a true act of heroism).
As I read the report, it all became clear. The elves and the goblins were working together.
My rage battled long and hard to take control. It urged me to command the trader to seize all the elven "goods" (cloth and berries? Whatever). It urged me to brutally massacre the pointy ears before the goblins could arrive and join forces with them. In the end, I feared that our tiny, ill equipped military would be unable to do so and so I took the more long term approach with the elves:
Ahhhh the fine art of diplomacy. Whereas the dwarven races look at insults, threats, and lies as a generally good time (so long as it is alcohol fueled), the taller species take them, refine them into an art form, and label it diplomacy. The only thing that could have made the expression on the elf's face sweeter would have been viewing it through ale goggles. It must take a lot of alcohol for their kind to reproduce. Maybe we should try exporting that next time.
The goblin force wasn't particularly strong. A handful of wrestlers (if a goblin can ever truly be called such), and two armed with swords. We had them outnumbered (so long as the elves didn't militarily get involved just yet), and our superior training meant that our lack of equipment wouldn't matter much. Sure, we lost two wooddorfs in their initial assault, but there shouldn't be any more losses.
Unless....
Unless one of our newer recruits were to somehow end up out alone before the rest of our forces got mustered. Wait, I shouldn't say she was alone. After all, she was CARRYING HER DAMN BABY INTO BATTLE!
You'd think this would be one of those times you'd hire a baby sitter.
Be forewarned, that the following image is not for the weak stomached, nor the easily distressed. If you do look though, pay particular attention to the inventory on the right hand side.
The little mess a few feet to the north is one of the baby's legs, too
Well, that poor wrestler and her child were not long for the world after that. The fortress entered a grim mood, but watching the troop maneuvers from behind the walls gave me hope, as I saw the larger squadron approaching (they had chased a single goblin across the map and returned now). From the distance I was at, I couldn't be sure, so I borrowed a looking glass, and confirmed my worst fears:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! After witnessing the events that followed, I can safely say that no words can effectively describe a female dwarven champion attacking goblins with three babies on her back (not pictured here, her fourth child, possibly with the father, also in the attack). Little Solon wouldn't survive the battle, but the combination of mother Dakost and the heroic Ducim would lead to the slaughter of the enemy.
**********************************
That's about the gist of what's happened over the past couple of months. We've lost some good dwarves, but their deaths were not in vain, as we can now prepare for the full threat of the combined forces of elf and goblin. So prepare we shall. Here's the todo list as it stands:
1. Continue work on the well/surface farming program.
2. Continue exploratory mining. We need to find at least iron, if not flux.
3. Fix this travesty of a burial system:
4. Finish new living space.
5. Bolster military, both in terms of numbers, and equipment (much of which relies on #2 on this lsit).
6. Start a nice road network to make it easier for caravans to reach the fort.
7. Move both the trade depot and the lever for the drawbridge into an area that is considered underground, so that they can be accessed during times when dwarves are forbidden to go to the surface.
8. (extra credit): turn the trade depot into an amazing efficient trap to kill all the elves that come next year.
That really is incredible. I saw a fort a few months ago with a similar, albeit very different idea...he submerged a fort (using green glass) in lava. I'll see if I can find it
Yeah, it's on the first floor (the one right below the surface) on the...left side. I believe. I'm surprised it even dried up, as that was a LOT of water.
Yeah, it's on the first floor (the one right below the surface) on the...left side. I believe. I'm surprised it even dried up, as that was a LOT of water.
I don't think so (though I am having Pikmin flashbacks...oh god, the reds! Hurry, blue, save them! save them! OH GOD THE REDS!). Indeed, for some reasons swimming is still foreign to me. I think a dwarf that can swim is allowed to pull himself out of the water (as in, goes from z-1 to z), but sometimes even my good swimmers end up drowning
I actually built stairs into a nearby river at the spot where they always for some reason drown in the hopes the dwarves could make their way to stairs somehow.
Aside from some repercussions from the excitement of Spring, Summer was more my kind of season. Incredibly productive in certain ways, and with much less dwarf death at the hands of our hated foes. In fact, most of the dwarf death was at the hands of dwarves. Such as Kib here:
I knew I needed to finish the Well. Poor bastard died of thirst in his prison cell.
Then there was the rampage and ensuring slugfest with the guards that ended Geshud's life:
I suppose if one of your champions is going to go crazy, the best possible place for it to happen is surrounded by a bunch of soldiers and guards in the sleeping quarters of the barracks. Well, not the best for HIM, but you know, for everyone else. Especially me. Glad I was in my office at the time. The guards took a statement as he bled out, and this is what he shared:
I suppose the fact that he was the father of one of the poor babies killed by the goblins weighed heavily on his mind, but still, the other three are now being raised by a single mother. A decidedly badass goblin slaying single mother, who is in a remarkably good mood at this point, but still.
There were a few other incidents over the early part of summer, usually involving dwarves who fought in the battle against the goblins, or who were related to one of the dead. Many claimed that seeing the decaying corpses of their friends were a contributing factor to their outrage. I am happy to report that a much more thorough burial ground has been constructed, so this need not trouble dwarves further:
We've continued our exploratory mining efforts over the summer, and this is probably the best news we've got to show for it:
Additionally we've struck some ore that can be smelted into copper. The plan at the moment is to forge some copper weapons. They'll be suitable for training at least, and probably better than barehanded fighting in future conflicts.
Generally, things were looking up, and I was pretty proud of my management so far. We got near midsummer though, and I realized that the Queen must not agree:
You know you've been doing poorly in the eyes of the big boss when regional managers have to come and oversee your work. So now now only are they running the show, but this Shem insists that we pay him to do so? Awful. What's worse is the cronyism. This Baron was in charge for all of two days when another missive comes from Queen arsekicker herself...
There isn't foul enough language to describe this. I work my beard off for a season and a half, only to get evicted from my damn bedroom, and this jackass is in charge for two days and he gets a promotion, as well as the ability to order me to order the citizens to build his sorry butt a suite and a tomb? If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bottom of a barrel of Dwarven Rum.
...
Well, with the arrival of the purply douchebags, we are supposed to get this economy going, and to that end I've had the dwarves construct a grand marketplace, positioned just south of the grand ballroom:
Unfortunately, access to it required a little bit of a sacrifice on the part of one of our fine artisans. Sorry SirPenguin!
The human caravan arrived, and while it went better than it did with the elves, we ran into a slight problem:
I knew I should have made the roads a higher priority! Work is progressing feverishly on them even as we speak in the hopes that the dwarven wagons can reach us in the fall. We'll see if that happens. The tall ones didn't bring much of interest, sadly. A little bit of metal (Iron only, IIRC). Lots of cloth. They happily accepted stonecrafts in exchange. A trade agreement was reached (I asked for more metal, and surface plant seeds for next year). They wanted mainly exports we won't be able to provide, even if our exploratory mining is successful, as I doubt we want to find metal just to make weapons to sell to the humans. Better them than the elves I suppose...
Summer began to wind down, and suddenly, my wife, the most beautiful bearded fish dissector who ever lived, began acting very strangely:
She stopped talking entirely. At first I thought I must have done something stupid when I was drunk again. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that it probably wasn't my fault this time. I gave our son one of "those looks", but it doesn't seem to have been his fault either. She kicked one of the bolt carvers out of a craftshop and started drawing shapes in the dirt. She stayed holed up in there for months, drawing creepily. Nothing I could offer would coax her out (not even a beard braiding party). Eventually she did come out, but she wasn't the same anymore.
She used to be so happy. Now, she hasn't touched food or drink for days. Still never says a word. Just stares at nothing with a sad look in her eyes.
I know what's happening. I've seen it before. I know what's coming. I know there's nothing I can do. I know I shouldn't be, but I'm already making funeral arrangements. Believe me when I say they are going to be epic.
TODO List for FALL:
1. Finalize construction of the surface farm.
2. Continue road network.
3. Continue Exploratory Mining.
4. Build a more epic defensive structure for fortress.
No worries, I bet it was an engraving of a piece of cheese or something
That reminds me, it's "tradition" to add yourself to the ranks of your dorfs upon retirement. But I noticed I seemed to be the only one to do so. Do past leaders want representation/do future leaders want to continue it?
edit: Poor fish dissector What was the material she wanted but couldn't have?
I just wish she had talked to me or that the human caravans had brought the supplies she seemed to want, whatever they were.
At least I was able to give her a proper dwarven burial:
In some ways, the days and weeks that followed were the most difficult of the entire year. Sure, there's arguments that could be made in favor of the goblin/elf attack, but when you've got a funeral planned like I have, but you've got to put it off until the end of your term... it's hard you know? My head just wasn't in it for awhile there. Which is why the bit of luck that came our way was so appreciated:
They actually approached from a position that allowed them to reach our trade depot with their wagons! The epic trade that went down is something that our Clerk will bragging about for years, I pretty much guarantee it... over 40k worth of goods exchanged hands! The caravan brought about a hundred logs of Tower Cap (we were a bit short on wood, so this was appreciated). Some bars of metal. Some Steel Weapons (and Steel Plate that we just barely couldn't afford). A fair amount of leather. Random odds and ends that occasionally are helpful (turtle shells, notably). They were glad to take our craftdwarves' output in exchange. The other bit of luck:
This poor dwarf was prepared to follow my dear wife to the grave, as we couldn't get out of him just what he needed for his work. As soon as the trade went through, he shoved his way through the crowds to grab an item from the trade depot though! The result:
I guess he really needed some tower cap.
One final bit of good fortune as fall wound down? We struck Hematite! Iron industry, here we come!
No sooner did we strike the nice vein then winter hits. Fortunately, Fightanus is located in a relatively mild climate, so winter isn't quite the fearsome predator that it is in some mountainhomes.
Winter was uneventful. The most excitement we had were the following two items, one good, and one bad:
I barely even noticed that one of our dwarves was struck by a mood before he had this completed. I guess he didn't have difficulty finding his materials. It's nice that we're fairly well supplied with a decent variety of goods at the moment.
That all only makes the winter's tragedy more confusing:
I've done a bit of investigating, and cannot figure out why this occurred. We've lost a couple other dwarves to hunger or thirst over the past couple months as well. A couple seemed to be injury-complications from sparring, but the rest, total mysteries. We've got plenty of booze, we've got an unfrozen brook. We've got a damn well. This is both inexplicable and inexcusable. I hope whoever's got the next year's term is able to figure this out.
Speaking of which, I'm pretty much at the end of my term, and so the time has come for a general list of accomplishments and state of affairs for the next guy:
Pictured here, you see the beginnings of our metal industry. 2 Magma Smelters and 4 Magma Forges. We could probably use another smelter or two, but we don't have the dwarves trained in their use at the moment, so I hadn't yet ordered their construction. The eastern smelter is the one I've been using for melting goblin/kobold loot. The melting down can probably stop now, and their loot can be used for weapon traps, but we were so short on metal previously that I felt it was better to reclaim it.
I was going to share a little map here to where the good stuff is, but it's too difficult to capture in images.
Most of the good metal ore is found on the higher layers, with the biggest veins to the sort of southwest of the fortress. In particularly, the layer with the craft shops, and the layer with dining rooms have been found to have magnetite, hematite, tetrawhatever-hite (copper), native copper, and native platinum. The two layers in between them look to have more of the same.
STILL NO FLUX
As undwarfy as it is, much of my work focused on the surface.
The main entrance to the fortress has had its defenses solidified. The images don't do it justice, and so I won't bother, but I've completed the roof that a previous manager began, and lined the top of the entire roof with fortifications. Raise the drawbridge, and deploy marksdwarves onto the second floor, and they should snipe any invaders pretty safely. This also means that both the Trade Depot and the drawbridge lever are reachable without going outside, so in a siege, civilians can be ordered to either location.
Work on roads have progressed nicely. The road to the west reaches our border uninterrupted. The road to the south only makes it about halfway down the hill, and I hope a future manager will complete it. The human merchants seem to come from the south east, so extending the road to our border and running along it to the south-eastern corner by summer may allow their wagons to reach us this year.
Behold! The well:
Difficult to tell from this crude drawing, but this well is on a bridge elevated above the brook. It took a couple seasons of construction, but there it goes. Where does the bridge go to? Possibly my proudest accomplishment of the year:
This farm is on the surface. It is surrounded by walls that extend to the same height as the main fort, and feature fortifications allowing marksdwarves to take potshots. They have a bit less space to maneuver than on the main fort, due to light needing to reach surface plants, but the idea is that this farm (which features both bridge access and tunnel access to the rest of the fort) is a theoretically safe way for our dwarves to grow surface plants.
The only problem: We have no seeds for surface plants. I've requested them of the human caravan for next year. I've had my dwarves picking random plants in the area. There's also the elves. My hope is that successors will be able to grow some new exotic plants for our brewers to convert into new types of booze, as some of our dwarves grow tired of the same stuff.
************
Overall, the fortress is doing really pretty well.
Military is probably a bit undersized, and still underequipped (they have crossbows but don't seem to train them often?), but we've got the metal now to change that.
One idea for successors is that the goblins seem to come from the northwestern valley. It may be possible to exploit this with some fortifications of that area, and/or water/magma plumbing.
This is our current status report. Note that if you keep on the dwarves as far as road/fortification building goes, unemployment is pretty low. However, some should probably be reassigned to crafting or what have you if the successor isn't focusing on the masonry as much.
For anyone else who has played Dwarf Fortress but wants a turn in a succession game, I've been trying to make a stable Fortress, and it looks like I've succeeded, somewhat.
There is the start of a metal industry, and a recently struck Gold Vein has supplied with more Gold than I have been able to process, so I have been turning it all into Crafts and Minting them into Coins. There is about 15 Metric Fucktons of Food and Drink, although I think I have to go double check to get the exact numbers. However, problems include;
1. The metal Industry has little in the way of stability and/or production capacity. Not enough furnaces and charcoal to keep up with demand, and not enough metalsmiths to produce goods. Which brings me to problem two.
2. Aside from The Dogs and Cats everywhere, there is little to nothing in the way of an army, or defenses. The Goblins/Kobolds Snatchers/Thieves rarely make it more than a few steps inside before they are set upon and are at least forced to retreat. Open stairs and ramps lead straight underground, no walls to speak of. Except for cats. I think I may be starting to reach critical feline mass. So walls and weapons. Otherwise, Exploratory mining went good, and there is Gold, Bauxite, and many more rocks. But I have a fair stockpile of crafts waiting to be traded, leading to...
3. Trading trap of death. I've made the trade depot underground and it is somewhat accessible, with caravans generally being able to stop. The engineering of the necessary channels and pits is too much of a feat for me to try figure out, as I'm about Smack Dab in the middle, it is a fairly large map, and the River is in the top right corner. The goal was to have the depot flood through one lever, then drain through a secondary lever into a grate leading down, to the well. After everyone had neatly drowned, grab all the stuff, and go.
Other than that, the labour is a little weird, and there are more beds/doors needing to be placed/assigned that I haven't ben able to get to.
Anyone up for it? PM me, and I'll post the story so far, along with Some Diagrams and such.
I think it helped that it runs so slowly with this many dwarves. It was very easy for me to micromanage, even when I didn't bother to pause the game, haha.
Incidentally, I just discovered while browsing the forums that I might have been ridiculously lucky not to burn everything down. Apparently fire imp corpses still light stuff on fire when butchered? I didn't even know they could be butchered, and apparently, the butchering went down safely...
It's still in alpha so it's missing a lot, especially for textures. If you see a "yellow box" that means there's no texture for it
As such I didn't take TOO many shots as it's not that interesting, but it's still cool to look at
The status of a dwarf is really determined by where he rests his head at night. The lower class? Well, let's just hope you're drunk enough to sleep through the snoring
The middle class have their own rooms, albeit tiny and shoved together in an apartment style. Still, they get their own chests, beds, and cabinets. Oh, and a door. That's important.
Nobles, of course, get a little more breathing room, fancier decorations, and their very own offices and dining rooms for guests. It's easy to see why players and dwarves alike hate nobles
My tomb doesn't look glorious as I expected it to. Those two boxes in the walls are gem windows.
Old dining room next to the old Party Cow cage. Not pictured: like 20 PARTY ANIMALS shoved in a cage surrounded by party dwarves
When you say visualizer, do you mean it just loads your data outside of the game to see it? Or can you play like that? If it is playable and gets stable, I don't think I'll be able to resist leaving ascii anymore.
It's not playable. It just displays your fortress in those graphics, and currently you ca'nt even see dwarves. (I assume that'll happen eventually?) It's just a fun toy you can run alongside your game while you play. FOR NOW. Maybe In The Year 2000 we'll be able to play like that. O;
I honestly have no idea how you stand it! I have nothing against ASCII, but Dwarf Fortress was always way too complicated and confusing for me to play in ASCII (as opposed to, say, Nethack, for example).
I honestly have no idea how you stand it! I have nothing against ASCII, but Dwarf Fortress was always way too complicated and confusing for me to play in ASCII (as opposed to, say, Nethack, for example).
I think it is largely the ridiculously massive amount of time I've spent playing roguelikes in my life. The various *bands, Nethack, ADOM, TOME, and then a bunch of sort of singletons that aren't as big. I've played pretty much all of them in ASCII, so I've just sort of got used to learning new ASCII symbols for games.
Plus, I'm a designer/programmer who often builds very graphically spartan prototypes of my games.
You have to have the weapons for them. If they don't have them to equip they train as wrestlers. I also believe you have to have at least 2 of the same weapon and two dwarfs assigned to use them. By that I mean you need 2 to spar and they only spar with weapons if they have the same weapon, otherwise they wrestle. I think that's right. They also only spar in the barracks, you have this of course otherwise you wouldn't have wrestlers. So make sure you have a barracks at least 2 of the same weapon and at least 2 dwarfs with that weapon equipped. Maybe put them in the same squad. I don't know if that matters but I have only seen dwarfs in the same squad spar together.
They can also drop their weapons if their hands get injured and get a bit of wrestler exp that way. A bloody shield lying in the middle of the barracks is a bit of a smoking gun.
You have to have the weapons for them. If they don't have them to equip they train as wrestlers. I also believe you have to have at least 2 of the same weapon and two dwarfs assigned to use them. By that I mean you need 2 to spar and they only spar with weapons if they have the same weapon, otherwise they wrestle. I think that's right. They also only spar in the barracks, you have this of course otherwise you wouldn't have wrestlers. So make sure you have a barracks at least 2 of the same weapon and at least 2 dwarfs with that weapon equipped. Maybe put them in the same squad. I don't know if that matters but I have only seen dwarfs in the same squad spar together.
I definitely have more than enough weapons for like fifty dwarves to train at once. I have TOO MANY weapons just because I suspected that might help. It didn't..
But they always end up as champion wrestlers. (i.e. they go from recruit to wrestler to elite wrestler to champion).
have you verified that they're actually picking them up? I'm guilty of forgetting to unlock the armory now and then. Armor and weapons are great, not so great when my dwarfs can't find a path to them.
I do a lot of locked-door stuff to get them into exactly the gear I want them to wear instead of whatever they find laying around that jut happens to fit.
I was actually having the same sort of issues in the succession game a bit. Even dwarves with crossbows weren't using the shooting range (two did, but they stopped). I didn't have many other weapons actually forged by the end of my turn.
Speaking of which, I think Norante is still not around, so whoever is after him should take over!
So I know this topic kinda died, but this past week has been an INCREDIBLE one for DF updates. Toady did a complete 180 from the rather dead and boring October, and has had an update once a day all week. Check 'em out here
Here is today's
The Terror of Lambs was the name of a goblin civilization that arose in the Windy Land. They settled at a spot in the mountains which they called Urarstod, "Malignedlaw". Initially, they were equals, but within the year, the goblin Zom Hatredscourges intimidated the others with threats of violence and called herself "Law-Giver", assuming absolute authority over the others. The Palace of Nightmares was constructed, and Zom ruled from within, amusing herself with the jaguars she tamed from the dunes. Strangely, having big kitty cat friends was not enough, and war began with the elves within three years. Zom led a small band to attack their forest two times and was beaten back twice in personal combat with the elf Lapama Glimmerdrink, a hobbled cyclops hunter. The third attack, named The Brutal Assault by historians, was to be the last for Zom, killed and eaten by Lapama, who returned to cyclops hunting and died the next year.
The goblins were used to having a Law-Giver by this time, and Smunstu Staticsteal, a bear-lover who braved the tundra and elven forests for polar bears and black bears alike, rose to the position. The humans took advantage of Lapama's death and defeated the elves utterly during this time, and the goblins lived in peace for many years. A trade dispute with the dwarves brought war back to the Windy Land.
The goblins were winning, nearly taking the dwarven capital, when something horrifying emerged from the dunes. A shambling mound of vomit vaguely resembling a walking frog, it was Vim Forkedmarshes the Profane Nadir, mistress of torture and misery, emerged from the underworld. The demon challenged Smunstu's legitimacy as Law-Giver of the Terror of Lambs, and brought down her putrid fists on Smunstu's face three times, killing the unfortunate goblin. After a few years, Vim moved into the Immoral Tower in Terrorballs, a new settlement built near the ruins of the dwarven capital, which had fallen to the cyclops, Savot Seasonwill, the same beast who killed Lapama years before. Indeed, the cyclops problem was now the pressing issue for the goblins and their disgusting leader. Savot's pack of four attacked Terrorballs repeatedly, and Vim held twice, fighting off the beasts. In the end, Savot was victorious, and Terrorballs became another empty husk to match the dwarven ruins nearby. The goblins cowered in Malignedlaw while the humans eeked out an existence far away on the coast, besieged by ettins and a bronze colossus.
As with yesterday, even the semi-megabeasts need to have their numbers reduced slightly, ha ha ha. I guess that's a welcome change compared to their 40d pathetic selves.
Anyway, that's the variable positions experiment with goblins, so I'm greening that one out. There's a lot more that can be done there, but this is a start. A goblin can consolidate control in one position (not necessarily through violence), or delegate military strategy to others who will do the fighting. In the world above, the Law-Giver position also had all of the military responsibilities. Zom might have lived a bit longer if she had delegated those tasks to others (there aren't military coups yet), but with the Profane Nadir coming down the line, an early death was probably inevitable!
I made another small world just now, and fortunately it went the other way. A popular goblin assumed control of the group without taking on the role of actually leading forces into combat. After a few goblins held this position, a demon took control (through a duel which ended without a death -- the goblin got married and then was shot by an elf the next year). Wars were being fought by unorganized groups of goblins at this time, and after about a decade, the goblins decided collectively to select a general to be under the demon (it's more likely that the demon decides, but it went the collaborative route). The demon survived (the short) world gen, but there were five or six generals in fifty years. After the duel, the demon never fought with anybody again. Every civilization was intact with all of their settlements and the world was in peace during the last thirty years, though the beasts were quite active (none of them died and they had a few hundred combined victims).
You see, my fortress was besieged by goblins and the natural defense method is to raise the drawbridge and shoot at them until they go away. However, one of my dwarfs was a little slower than the others - slower because she was carrying her baby!
She was on the drawbridge when it raised and was crushed instantly, but the baby was thrown clear into the dry moat!
Alone and trapped, the baby, guilty for surviving where it's mother had not, became severely depressed and tried to kill itself.
Of course, the only ledge it could access was a some construction scaffolding that was only one square high. So it's attempts to suicide were only met with less than minor injury.
The baby kept jumping off the ledge over and over and over. Even when a platform was constructed to bring it back to the main fortress, it kept on jumping off the ledge. Over and over.
Eventually someone came and dragged depressed baby off of the ledge and put him in the nursery. The baby was never carried around again, but would toddle around the fortress, blue arrow reminding everyone about how depressed he was - though he did stop trying to kill himself.
Fast forward a few years, Depressed Baby has grown to be a depressed child (though he still carries the title Depressed Baby). He seems to be a functioning member of society, no longer even actually depressed. I'd thought that he was on his way to recovery.
Until I noticed something today.
I was checking the barracks, making sure my newly formed military (all but three of my military dwarves died in another siege) were properly equipped with the correct weapons, when I noticed that Depressed Baby was there.
In his inventory there was nothing but blood, mud and vomit.
Every single place on the body that could possibly be mentioned, was covered in blood. Spatters AND smears. There mud is only on his face, hands and feet, and he is covered in vomit to his waist.
Depressed Baby - please never ever get a Strange Mood.
just finished the first 2 tutorials and i tried to build a own fortress now but the game is far to deep to simply try to figure everything out on your own ^^
will continue later with the rest of the tutorials
i would love it when they would opensource it so that someone could add the pixelart style directly in the game client and give it a normal mouse interface with buttons and stuff
Yeah, I'd say wait for the OpenGL merger for the latest version. Game runs really slow and is still ASCIImagination. Once that is out and easy to download graphic bundles have been made the game will be worth diving into.
Right now? Lots of new stuff to understand when the game is hard to get started. Fucking 10 minutes of carving a tunnel into a hillside before I can even create a Depot room or sleeping area. Fuck that shit.
Toady said something about the merger happening soon -- like a week. No big deal when everyone has been waiting how long for the latest version?
