Dwarf Fortress

[Corel]

So this game currently is strangely addictive for a number of reasons. I think mostly because it's like a combination of Dungeon Keeper with extreme Macro and Micro Management, the stuff you can do in this game is insane. Want to activate a switch that opens up a trapdoor that traps some unsuspecting creatures in a slowly flooding room? Check. Make a multi-level housing district and path ways to find optimal logistical positioning? Check. Hand pick Dwarfs to carry a number of skills, join the army, train them and pick their inventory? Check. Macro everything and everyone to your needs? Got that too.

You would think that the ASCII graphics would put you off, but after 20 minutes or so I stopped caring about them and found them incredibly endearing. I felt really sad that I was forced to butcher a puppy for my dwarfs to survive the Winter, as the dwarf slowly dragged him off to the Butchers and a "?" kept flashing for the puppy.

So here's a picture of my fortress with some annotations because I imagine it's pretty confusing on it's own:



1 - Just to the East of the big 1 is the first residential area that was built, it was originally just a single row of houses then I decided that it really should just be made to a communal street with a dining hall at the end of it. The dining hall used to be where the giant yellow 5 was, but decided to move it for military purposes. By the way you can assign Dwarf's their own indivudal rooms in this game. It's stupidly in depth.

2 - The second residential area being made, in response to site 3 being built. This site will be further developed as I get more immigrants.

3 - The newer industrial site that was built. Industrial areas contain workshops that dwarfs of specific skills (The more proficient, the better) can make a variety of items like weapons, trap devices, instruments, beds etc.) Decided to put on here so that it was closer to the stockpiles and the workers of both area 1 and 2 could get easier access to both. That purple stuff is the rotting of corpses, you get used to seeing that pretty quickly.

4 - Older industrial area that was first built.

5 - This area and South of the main road is the military defence which are barracks and my Guard Captain's office and quarters, best place to put them I think seeing that is where the entrance to the place is. This is where you can assign squads to sleep and spar with one another. There is also an archery range on the Southern road. The big blue block just West of the big yellow 5 is the trade depot where other civilisations can come and trade with me.

6- North of the yellow 6 are the fields which have their own seasonal crops which is one of the main reasons why my Dwarfs have not starved to death (yet). Also my main stock piles of food, wood, refuse and ammunition are also here.

7 - The main river flowing past my fort, and the source of lots of fishing. I think as times get more difficult and armies start to siege me I will channel the water into some sort of moat with a drawbridge. If I REALLY put some thought into it, I would set up a mechanical lever in the fort to unleash the entire water so it swept upwards and trapped/washed the opposing force away. However testing such a thing could be quite difficult!

Quite a wordy post, but this is not even touching the surface of this game.

But really, 5 megabytes and free download is a sure game to try. Be warned though that the amount of stuff to learn is INSANE. I've been playing for a few days wiki'ing everything to make things work, and I'm still finding new things out.

Also, I have the potential for a crazy cat lady.

[Loyal]

This page was very useful for me while starting out.

How the hell did you get the screen resolution that high? All I can manage is this puny default.


It figures that the one time I choose to embark without an anvil I get a metric dwarfton of ores of all shapes and sizes.

[Corel]

Originally Posted by Loyal

This page was very useful for me while starting out.

How the hell did you get the screen resolution that high? All I can manage is this puny default.


It figures that the one time I choose to embark without an anvil I get a metric dwarfton of ores of all shapes and sizes.

Ah yes, that was the first thing I used too.

I wish the resolution was that high; I just took screenshots of each screen and shoved them together in paint.

You can't see it on that screenshot but I've got a load of mountain rock up North about 3-4 times the height of that picture to go through yet. Need to come up with a plan how I'm going to make them logistics work.

A Dwarf with no skills at all became crazy and locked himself in the Dwarfcraft Workshop for 20 minutes then proceeded to go insane and subsequently get the shit beaten out of him by the Guards who then went to the Dining Hall to get drunk. All in a day's work for the Fuzz.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

You should re-direct that river so that it flows through your castle, then you can fish in safety even while under siege. And build a MASSIVE wall all around farms/forests, for the same reason.

But there again I've never played this game, looks too complicated, so pay me no mind. I like the idea of using the river as a weapon though, sounds suitably awesome.

[Loyal]

then you can fish in safety even while under siege.

Define safety.

[Jenwrath]

wow, the depth this game has is amazing. sadly, the graphics are beyond bad for me.

nearly everything looks exactly the same, its making it rediculously hard to give this game a chance.

are there any mods out there that update the graphics to at least regular nintendo quality? i mean, given how complex the game is coming across to me, it makes sense to keep graphics simple, along with given how its.....free and all. but cmon, this is awful.

[Roland]

The (unofficial) newest version lets you resize the window and increases/decreases the tile count to fit.

I remember doing a Let's Play of this a few months ago on Random Insanity (Gamefaqs). Even after five game years and around 20-24 updates the interest in it was pretty much nil. Then the purge monster ate the topic. I mean to be fair the most interesting things that happened overall were the goblin ambushes (two of which had or were led by humans), but still.

Anywho, I'm waiting for the next version and a new computer before I play the game again. My current one is around 6 years old and I'm surprised it hasn't just given up by now.

[Kepor]

Originally Posted by Jenwrath

wow, the depth this game has is amazing. sadly, the graphics are beyond bad for me.

nearly everything looks exactly the same, its making it rediculously hard to give this game a chance.

are there any mods out there that update the graphics to at least regular nintendo quality? i mean, given how complex the game is coming across to me, it makes sense to keep graphics simple, along with given how its.....free and all. but cmon, this is awful.

There are several tilesets. I think Mayday's set is pretty popular, although there are compatibility issues with it.

And the graphics aren't too bad. After awhile you don't really notice it. Heck, all I see is blond, brunette, redhead...

[PyrosNine]

Pyros understands that the construction is actually three dee, and is shown pictures of three dee on the Let's Play on Something Awful.

Pyros no understand...what...Why are elephants so evil? And not Hippos? Lava traps? Boatmurder?

I'm a play Minecraft instead and just pretend to go crazy and build a golden engraving of an god-dwarfess kicking an Elephant into a thousand pieces, and then if I run out of materials go mad and drown myself in lava.

I guess it makes sense for the Dwarves to go crazy at the drop of a hat: Elves are far too sane and sober and live in high places, so obviously their opposites have to live underground and utterly insane and sloshed out of their minds.

[McTahr]

I tried this out, but just couldn't get into it. I've thoroughly enjoyed ADOM, another ASCII fantasy type, but I just was never the Dungeon Master type.

The sheer detail you can go to in this game is just absolutely stunning though, and I really wish I had the time to focus on it.