Dwarf Fortress you sick temptress, you!

polypusher wrote:

I call it the Beer Factor.

Gah, I hate the Beer Factor, in the Late Winter, when all the alcohol is gone, and the fields have yet to be planted. But then, I love the Beer Factor when its the middle of summer and my pig tails are rolling in from the fields to be made into delicious Dwarven ale.

Lord, I love this game.

Alien13z wrote:

There may not be a command, but they definitely change speeds. My dwarves all of a sudden started hauling ass today, and it was a lot more fun. The seasons were changing more quickly too. Then everything slowed down again. I have no idea why.

Having the option on for "Dwarves collect minerals" can have a serious performance drain at times. What I've noticed is that it's worst when you have lots of stone in stockpiles and very few stones left to be moved into stockpiles.

There is a thread at the Bay12 forums about speeding the game up and I believe that Toady mentioned a "command" that would make the dwarves go faster. Not the actual time though.

I have only just discovered the joy of throwing giant rat corpses at Antmen.

Until this moment, I had not lived.

How exactly do you do that?

Oh, btw, last night I hit adamantium. I saved at that point and haven't had a chance to play since. I hear adamantium is a pain to process.

How much deeper past the demon pits do you have to dig?

Surprisingly, not far. Maybe 15 to 20 squares. And I kept expecting more demons to come out of the pits. So far, there have been none since the initial attack. I've been building bridges over them.

Its the same way as throwing rocks in Adventure Mode, but the body of Bernard the Ratman works just as well. Pick up the body, it goes in your backpack, and then when you see an Richie the Antman come crawling at you, Bernie gets a shot at helping the cause.

Ahh, okay. I haven't played Adventure mode yet.

What kind of firepower do I need to handle the demon pits? Are they the next obstacle after the magma?

Is anyone else getting serious headaches from this game? I've had a perpetual headache for the last week and I'm wondering if it's from staring at the flashing ASCII.

I was getting a headache playing at home so I mostly play at work now and then. I think it was something about the way the scrolling was displayed on the screen just wasnt agreeing with my brain. For whatever reason, there's no such problem at work.

The best defense I put up against demons still cost me half my dwarves. I had 2 squads of military dwarves on defense. They held their ground for a while and put up a great fight, killing several demons, but in the end they were dead and the demons had free reign, only finally killed by tons of dwarves wrestling them. I hear flooding can be useful, at least to damage all but the frog demons.

Im curious if anyone has done interesting traps with levers and pressureplates and whatnot. I pretty much stick to hallways lined with stone fall and weapon traps and that pretty much does the trick most of the time. Im starting to use war dogs on leashes more and I hear you can put several dogs in a cage and have a lever or pressure plate open the cage, which would be a cool defense.

Also, I built a channel to pour magma into the chasm and left it running for a while. I haven't noticed any change. I still get Michael Keaton ambushes (batmen) and havent received any messages that might indicate the chasm dwellers are being killed by the magma. I suppose the goal is to be able to chasm garbage at will without worrying about attack, and shifting defense away from the chasm.

Alien13z wrote:

Is anyone else getting serious headaches from this game? I've had a perpetual headache for the last week and I'm wondering if it's from staring at the flashing ASCII.

No headaches for me. Just the usual inability to focus on objects farther than 3 feet away for up to an hour after I have been playing DF, increased phone call activity from my girlfriend feeling unloved, and urges to complain to the Kroger manager about there being a distinct lack of dwarven themed alcoholic beverages in the liquor aisle.

polypusher wrote:

Also, I built a channel to pour magma into the chasm and left it running for a while. I haven't noticed any change. I still get Michael Keaton ambushes (batmen) and havent received any messages that might indicate the chasm dwellers are being killed by the magma. I suppose the goal is to be able to chasm garbage at will without worrying about attack, and shifting defense away from the chasm.

I saw on the wiki page that there might be a certain number of chasm monsters you have to defeat before it turns red. All I know is that I channeled it to the chasm, saw nothing happen for about 3 hours, killed a giant toad, and then got the red streak down the chasm. Nothing has popped out since.

Now if only I hadn't burned out a quarter of my fortress getting the magma to the chasm.

No headaches for me.

Defense against demons: I don't know. At the very least, have a dozen dwarves standing guard decked out in steel or iron armor, the whole works: leggings, mail (preferably plate), gauntlets, helmet. And of course, iron or steel weapons. These guys should probably have a weapon skill at or higher than "axedwarf" or whatever weapon they're using. A number should be marksmen so they can fire while the frontline dwarves go for melee attacks.

Your setup on the east side of the magma should be a chokepoint so that wherever demons spawn (they don't necessarily spawn out of the pits, they seem to be able to spawn anywhere on the east side of the magma) they'll have to go through your guard post before they can reach the rest of your fortress. Now you may remember that my design had a chamber with 4 steel doors that the demons had to get through before they could reach my bridge. This chamber also had the alternating water and magma. Everything worked as designed when I realized the demons were attacking (I got a message saying a steel door had been destroyed). However, I couldn't tell if any demons were killed by the water/magma: no bodies were left behind. And of course I had to be sure to turn off the water/magma before they knocked down the 4th steel door. In retrospect, I should have had chained dogs to act as sentries, because demons are stealthy and you probably won't see them until they're just about to strike.

As for chasm monsters, I got very few attacks before the aqueduct bug sent magma flowing into my chasm. After that happened, I got none.

1 minute ago contact with my fortress was lost. Basically, once this past season started (1065), I went full-on with adamantine mining and processing. I thought the "contact lost" check would have been at the beginning of the season, but no big deal. I knew this would happen eventually and I've been looking forward to starting over with some grand designs.

There's something very unsatisfying about that ending and the way it's handled. You dig up some new metal which leads to a chance of poof, game over. Apparently some massive demon makes carpeting out of your dwarves and you can visit him (get slaughtered by him) in Adventure mode.

I'd prefer to see the destruction even if there's really nothing to be done about it.

Whats the longest anyone has survived in Adventure mode?

I managed to live through 2 quests and start a 3rd with a pretty badass wrestler. He met his end by a kobold or goblin archer. I pretty much turned a corner and got an arrow through the throat. Immediate mortal wound. He lived long enough to crush the bastard's skull, but died pretty quickly after that. That's when I learned the value of stealth.

polypusher wrote:

Whats the longest anyone has survived in Adventure mode?

I managed to live through 2 quests and start a 3rd with a pretty badass wrestler. He met his end by a kobold or goblin archer. I pretty much turned a corner and got an arrow through the throat. Immediate mortal wound. He lived long enough to crush the bastard's skull, but died pretty quickly after that. That's when I learned the value of stealth.

Funny you should say this, Poly. I've been adventuring alot in the past week. So far, my longest survival is a cavern and a ruin. Killed a Minotaur in the cave, and an Elite Spearzombie in the ruin. before I got slaughtered by a Unicorn while heading back to town. That was a hammerdwarf, with a penchant for throwing rocks.

I've been torn apart by kobold archers, too. Vicious little things. One shot pinned my hand to my leg and caused me to drop my mace. I had no idea how to pick it back up...

The joys of Adventure Mode...

Gah! Having started a dwarven hammerman, and traveling to a human town, I recruited two spearmen, a pikeman and three drunks to go a'wanderin'. We found the mayor and a quest - to kill the Giant in Ragsscar cave. Okay. Half a day's journey, and a few short paces into the cave, we found him. After an epic battle, in which my knee was broken and several of the drunks mangled, we brought him down. The key moment of the battle when one of the spearman's thrusts tore out his throat, and he passed out from the pain. Allowing the drunks to swarm him and break various appendages.
Most of us were injured in some way, so we planned to head back to the city. Being the stout dwarf, I led the way back up a level and started the very short distance to the cave entrance. Turning a corner, my spine was torn out by a cave crocodile and I was promptly struck down.

I stuck around long enough to watch them kill the croc. What a frustrating game.

Agreed it's frustrating, and immensely fun. It'll get better as Adventure mode grows. Hopefully the player can survive a little longer since they want you to be able to start a family, build a home, and you'll eventually be able to adventure as your heirs, which sounds extremely awesomely fantastic.

I've pictured Dwarf Fortress in its future form not really being too far off from 2 current games. World of Warcraft and Oblivion. Watching my WoW dwarf dig away at an iron node, its impossible not to picture DF imported into the WoW engine. Adventure mode is pretty much already built into WoW, you just need some tweaks to things like spawning. For Dwarf Fortress mode, you'd need a RTS interface to control your 100+ dwarfs, but it would look great.

Oblivion has some things in common with DF in Adventure mode. In fact if you could mod Oblivion to let you start in any city instead of underground, make death permanant and the world persist after a death, you'd have an extremely fun mod right there. Applying the Oblivion Overhaul mod which changes the game from dynamic leveling of opponents and loot, to a static system that goes by distance from civilization and deepness underground, would further emulate DF's adventure mode.

I've been playing some Adventure mode now, trying to get back to my lost fortress. It's extremely far away from the starting locations though, and I'm still learning the game. "Play Now!" puts you right in front of the fortress, but with no weapons, no skills, no companions. Basically instant death.

polypusher wrote:

Oblivion has some things in common with DF in Adventure mode. In fact if you could mod Oblivion to let you start in any city instead of underground, make death permanant and the world persist after a death, you'd have an extremely fun mod right there. Applying the Oblivion Overhaul mod which changes the game from dynamic leveling of opponents and loot, to a static system that goes by distance from civilization and deepness underground, would further emulate DF's adventure mode.

As per the discussion in the Oblivion thread, I think DF is getting closest to the thing I want most from a game. I want the ability to chop down a tree and then use the wood to craft arrows. Or a bench. Or a statue. I want a fully interactive environment where I can mine out a burrow in the mountainside, and then craft a door from the stone I have cut. Where I can strike ore, mine it, refine it, and craft myself a new weapon.
Being able to do that in DF isn't too far off. But being able to do that in something as graphically satisfying as Oblivion would be incredible.

I've got an 'expert' fortress going. Basically one that tries to incorporate all of the lessons I've learned in my last successful fortress. I guess I should have written them down.

I had some issues with mining areas I didn't mean to mine, but that's okay, they weren't that important. The big problem though was this past winter (year 5), 30 dwarves starved to death. I mean, wow! I've NEVER had a dwarf starve to death in previous games, unless he was badly injured or stuck in a bugged prison state. Somehow all of my food stores dried up completely. Lost my legendary jeweler, but fortunately not my legendary miner or carpenter. It also didn't help that the hungry dwarves threw a lot of tantrums, meaning that my captain of the guard handied out a plethora of beatings, leaving at least 3 dwarves with unhealable wounds.

Also, I just had a dwarf go crazy, kill another dwarf, and use his skin to make a shield. How cool is that?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Also, I just had a dwarf go crazy, kill another dwarf, and use his skin to make a shield. How cool is that?

Really. Freaking. Cool.

And also kinda sick.

A random Dwarven Fortress encounter wrote:

Granitetoes: Hey! SoggyBeard! Long time no see!
Soggybeard: Hey, Nittoes! Yeah, I've been kinda cooped up.
GT: Seriously. It feels like it's been half a season. You and Slate both disappeared. I've been out hunting Elephants. Check it out *hefts carcass*
SB: Sweet! That's quite haul, we'll have to feast later.
GT: No doubt! I see you've been busy, that's a pretty swanky looking shield you're sporting.
SB: You like it? I've been making it since winter. Y'know, one of those things where a 'mood' just strikes you.
GT: Oh yeah. I remember when Slate locked himself in the Smithy and built a copper helmet in the shape of a mushroom. Oh man, we called him Penishead for months, but he refused to take it off! Ahh, good times *wipes away tear* Speaking of Slate, have you seen him around? Now that you're back we should all go pound some ale 'till the Sheriff locks us up!
SB: Oh, about that...

IMAGE(http://rps.net/QS/Images/brilliant.jpg)

That's so cool about the graphics of DF. You can fill all the rest in yourself. Nice one Bill.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I've got an 'expert' fortress going. Basically one that tries to incorporate all of the lessons I've learned in my last successful fortress. I guess I should have written them down.

I'm eager to try this. For me, the pure gold of the game comes in the early years where there are very few dwarves, and you're trying to scrape a living together on the edge of the wilderness.

Toady's got a Bug Page up. Some of them sound like lots of fun. And others are clearly bug 'reports' that he's gotten from other players. Some make sense; others don't.

Bug 43 (open, dwarf mode:creatures):

* children in bags made copies of themselves

Goblin child-snactchers grab child dwarves and stuff them in bags. Supposedly. I've never had one make it much past the front door.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Goblin child-snactchers grab child dwarves and stuff them in bags. Supposedly. I've never had one make it much past the front door.

Ah, then you've never experienced the delight of having multiple dwarves go insane because they witnessed the death of a child, because said child insisted on wandering around outside almost to the edge of the map where there was no opportunity to rescue her when the child snatchers message appeared? Good times!

KillerTomato wrote:

Ah, then you've never experienced the delight of having multiple dwarves go insane because they witnessed the death of a child, because said child insisted on wandering around outside almost to the edge of the map where there was no opportunity to rescue her when the child snatchers message appeared? Good times! ;)

Huh, nope. However, I did have 1 child starve to death in my recent Winter of Tragedy. No telling whether or not her parents were still alive though. It was pretty chaotic. My last remaining beating victim finally snuffed it last night.