Dwarf Fortress you sick temptress, you!

nothing to brew into alcohol,

Actually, the problem appears to be that you don't have anything to brew *into*. You need barrels or pots.

With sand and magma you can make infinite green glass.

Yes, and this is one of my favorite things in DF, but it's usually quite difficult to get to magma early. By the time you can do the massive engineering required to bring magma to a useful depth, the fortress is usually fully developed.

If you get lucky and have magma reasonably near the surface, though, Green Glass R Us.

Gremlin wrote:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/HxjSofA.png)
Here you can see the auxiliary squad drilling in the barracks. The prisons are off to the left, just past the sheriff's suite of rooms there. I've installed a bunch of traps in the entrance corridor and the start of the fortifications in the gate passage, but until the hole in the moat gets fixed it's not going to matter.

Aw, when I first saw this shot, I'd been thinking an Individual Combat Drill was some kind of new weapon.

Gremlin wrote:

To control bridges (and floodgates and other traps) you'll need to build levers. Like most things in Dwarf Fortress, the interface is obtuse: build to open the build buildings menu, then the Traps submenu, and then build a lever. Once it is built, add a task to connect it to the bridge you want. A dwarf will need two mechanisms to link both ends together. Once that task is complete, you can add a Pull Lever task to the lever and when a dwarf pulls the lever the other end activates (closing the bridge in this case). Careful that you don't care about whatever is on the bridge, because they close fast and can send things flying.

Trust me, drawbridges flinging things is a feature!

Malor wrote:
nothing to brew into alcohol,

Actually, the problem appears to be that you don't have anything to brew *into*. You need barrels or pots.

You are correct. The barrel shortage was fortunately easy to correct.

Despite the losses from the cyclops attack, the arrival of migrants has boosted the population to a comfortable 83:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/bajTJ0g.png)
A new entertainer is petitioning to join, and we now have quite a few dwarves with actual medical skills.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/59flI5O.png)
A human caravan! Humans have wagons, which means they are carrying a lot of stuff. Including, in this case, cloth. And we have a ton of crafts to trade with them.

The news is as expected:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/28bb5a2.png)
Cog engraved yet another masterpiece, and then another one after that. A new mayor has been elected. And the cloth was exactly what Obok needed.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/kEkqXBj.png)
A dingo bone bracelet isn't my idea of a good time, but I'm not one to criticise the muse.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/6UQ8p5v.png)
The main decoration seems to be about the current queen's mother, so presumably the royal family will be most impressed by this one, if they happen to hear about it. Cog has probably already done a commemorative engraving for it.

The sick temptress strikes again, I'm trying out the 42 newb pack! Thanks for the tips, Gremlin and Malor. Much appreciated. I am about to strike the Earth of my second location. I messed up the layout of the first one pretty badly and wanted to give it another go.

I am using Capt_Duck's tutorial video embark profile for easy newbing. It starts with a hunting dwarf with a crossbow and some ammo. He runs out of ammo pretty quick, and has to rely on crossbow-slapping animals with the blunt end. I switched him to fishing until I can get more ammo through trade or industry. Is that a reasonable thing to do? I am in a low savagery, calm spot.

Mixolyde wrote:

I am using Capt_Duck's tutorial video embark profile for easy newbing. It starts with a hunting dwarf with a crossbow and some ammo. He runs out of ammo pretty quick, and has to rely on crossbow-slapping animals with the blunt end. I switched him to fishing until I can get more ammo through trade or industry. Is that a reasonable thing to do? I am in a low savagery, calm spot.

Note that you can make wooden and bone crossbow bolts. That said, hunting is a high-risk occupation for dwarves in the best of times, though with enough utility that the risk is usually worth it.

My suggestion is you mark the bolts he comes with as just for military uses and set him up with bone bolts.

Cool, thanks. I thought you needed metal for the tips. Awesome.

Mixolyde wrote:

Cool, thanks. I thought you needed metal for the tips. Awesome.

Note that sharpened sticks are a lot less effective as arrows when you're fighting something substantial, but for hunting wombats and dingoes they work just fine.

Just don't expect to take down a bronze colossus with them.

OK. New Year's resolution. I'm sure that's never been written on this thread before.

I need a super 3D graphical mod for DF. How can I get it to work?

Strangeblades wrote:

OK. New Year's resolution. I'm sure that's never been written on this thread before.

I need a super 3D graphical mod for DF. How can I get it to work?

Armok Vision comes with the Starter Pack.

Gremlin wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

OK. New Year's resolution. I'm sure that's never been written on this thread before.

I need a super 3D graphical mod for DF. How can I get it to work?

Armok Vision comes with the Starter Pack.

Thanks Gremlin!

Strangeblades wrote:
Gremlin wrote:
Strangeblades wrote:

OK. New Year's resolution. I'm sure that's never been written on this thread before.

I need a super 3D graphical mod for DF. How can I get it to work?

Armok Vision comes with the Starter Pack.

Thanks Gremlin!

Make sure you enable DFHack. Armok won't work without it.

I played some DF over the last few days. The first fortress fell quickly to dehydration as I pretty much failed to set up any brewing and they went through the stuff faster than I expected.

The second one is going well but it's pretty uneventful. I'm having a hell of a time finding any metal. I've had to trade for the weapons and armor I have now. About 40 layers deep near the 2nd underground area I've found I did finally discover a vein of aluminum. Looks like there's a lot of it down there. I think I'm well set up for defense. I have a moat that backs up against my 'hill' with a retractable bridge, walls and a roof to make sure they can't just come down the hill on top of me.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/SBUYIJX.png)
A caravan from the dwarven homeland has arrived. Meanwhile, Mebzuth is the latest dwarf to be overcome with inspiration.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/WGZ5FFv.png)
The fortress is pretty well stocked by this point, so the relatively simple marble coffer artifact isn't too much trouble.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/2YEeEWy.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/HzyxXzf.png)
And more visitors asking permission to hang around. I've been approving them all. Our tavern has become a pretty popular destination, and there's always a big crowd of visitors. Gosh, I hope none of them are up to anything nefarious...

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/8Sg68kx.png)
A liaison from the Mountainhomes came with the caravan. With news that we've been elevated to a barony, as long as we appoint a baron.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Dag5dZ6.png)
I thought about appointing Erush, since he's easily the most important dwarf for the fort; but that very importance makes me reluctant to give him up. Ezum, on the other hand, has leadership experience (even if he hated the job).

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/prmnboc.png)
Of course, once he's appointed he immediately goes on a power trip and demands an upgrade in his accommodations...

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/OcORYRs.png)
An entire performance troupe has come to visit. Also, we're now out of logs. I can just cut down some more trees, of course. I want to be careful because we don't have all that many on the map, but there's still plenty left. Well, except for a slight complication...but that's down the the road.

You've got me playing this again after a long hiatus. I've had to start over so many times because of stupid noob mistakes. And because of were-beasts.

Some of the new stuff has me baffled. For instance, I can't figure out how to create a temple. The wiki just says it's a location created from a meeting room, but I can't find an option to turn a meeting room into a temple.

FeralMonkey wrote:

You've got me playing this again after a long hiatus. I've had to start over so many times because of stupid noob mistakes. And because of were-beasts.

Some of the new stuff has me baffled. For instance, I can't figure out how to create a temple. The wiki just says it's a location created from a meeting room, but I can't find an option to turn a meeting room into a temple.

Once you've created the meeting room, on the same zone selection screen ('i'), move the cursor to the zone, and press 'l'. It's an obtuse way to do it, but that's Dwarf Fortress.

After you've created it, you can see details about it by Shift+L from the main menu.

I've been playing again. I've started two fortresses. The first one ended in the second year after the river froze before I had my still going and everybody died of dehydration at the same time. Number two was done in by a wereskink. The first one was dispatched pretty easily but before I had my military or hospital set up. The three dwarves that he infected however did the rest of the fortress in.

I really need to find a good guide on how to get the military working. I've never figured out how to train or dispatch soldiers.

Gremlin wrote:
FeralMonkey wrote:

You've got me playing this again after a long hiatus. I've had to start over so many times because of stupid noob mistakes. And because of were-beasts.

Some of the new stuff has me baffled. For instance, I can't figure out how to create a temple. The wiki just says it's a location created from a meeting room, but I can't find an option to turn a meeting room into a temple.

Once you've created the meeting room, on the same zone selection screen ('i'), move the cursor to the zone, and press 'l'. It's an obtuse way to do it, but that's Dwarf Fortress.

After you've created it, you can see details about it by Shift+L from the main menu.

Ha. The issue is that I am an idiot. Seems I'm running 40.24, and not 42.04. So no temples for me. Oh well. After I inevitably run this fortress into the ground I'll make sure I have the latest.

Yeah, I'm with Norfair, for all the time I've sunk into DF I've never mastered an effective military, hence my reliance on impenetrable entrance design.

I've started this and Rim World recently as games to play while on the road. I'm playing the step by step tutorial for DF and going off a video tutorial for Rim World. They're both extremely captivating and it's very easy to lose hours watching your group (hopefully) executing your wishes.
Last night I buried one of my RW colonists-not for a game reason, but because I thought she deserves it. I thought it was pretty cool later that week when I saw one of the other colonists visiting her grave.
I know stuff like this is going on in DF as well, but it's not quite as easy for me to notice. Hopefully, it'll become clearer to me as I play.

Yeah, the obtuse interface in Dwarf Fortress unfortunately masks a lot of what is going on. If you examine the dwarves thoughts (v > z > Enter) there's a lot of details in there about their personality and opinions of recent events, but it's not something that's easy to check on. Until something triggers a tantrum and the fortress is covered in blood, of course.

Maybe I can use that to discover why all the newly appointed engravers keep going mad!

A part of it also has to do with the numbers. RW starts me out with just three colonists, and I haven't expanded much. I can't recall what the original size of the DF beginning group was, but I know it's up to about 40 now. Far easier to follow the exploits of 90% less people, regardless of the interface.

fogrob wrote:

Last night I buried one of my RW colonists-not for a game reason, but because I thought she deserves it.

Wait... was she dead?

Lol, yes. She was defending the compound and was charged by a raider with a spiked club. The battle was won after she went down, but she didn't make it.

I haven't paid much attention to DF this past year. I've been content to let it stew and evolve while I was busy with other things. Today I happened to check in with how development was going and HELLO what's this?!

07/05/2016 Toady One Here are the first official 64-bit releases! This would not be possible without help from our community -- you can view the exciting and sometimes late-night discussion over in the 0.43.04 release thread if you want to see how the cake was baked. This release should also make worlds generated with the same seed more consistent, and it has a few other minor fixes we managed to sneak in.

New stuff
- 64-bit support, pulling the game from the distant past into the previous decade

Yeah, but it's rather messed up DFHack, so I've been waiting for things to settle.

I mostly use DFHack for two things, the ability to sort things you use most to the top of pick lists, and for the workflow management. I gather that this new DF has some kind of workflow capability built right in, that the job of Manager actually takes on some real use. So I might not truly need DFHack, but I've still been waiting.

Speaking of DFHack, I think the latest alpha release as of 3 days ago includes tentative 64-bit support. There may be bugs, I don't grok most of the technical stuff.

https://github.com/DFHack/dfhack/rel...

I don't want any filthy water.