asper
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2007
- Messages
- 2,207
Ahoy, codexers and codexettes! Welcome to the thread in which I will escape the maelstrom of wankery which is modern mainstream gaming by playing Slaves to Armok: God of Blood - Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress!
I guess the majority of people on these boards are already familiar with Dwarf Fortress, but for those of you new to the game I will write a short fan-boyish masturbatory sales-pitch... erm, introduction.
Introduction
Dwarf Fortress is a strategy game with elements of a management sim, an RTS and SimCity. Think of Dungeon Keeper and then soak it in the number-crunching complexity of a Roguelike, and you get close to what DF is. The player takes the role of leader of an expedition of dwarfs, which set out to build a Fortress. The dwarfs are not controlled directly, but by issuing orders. They will need food and drink, which can be produced by farming or obtained by hunting and trading, and they will have to make crafts and dig for minerals and gems to sell to merchants. The number of different buildings, workshops, items, skills, creatures, stone and mineral types in the game is large, and the interaction between them is very detailed.
The game features a year-cycle with changing weather conditions. In the winter, lakes and streams can freeze. Caravans of traders arrive after winter. Thieves roam the world, and can invade your fortress to steal your precious goods - this is why it needs to be protected by traps, your militia, and secured by doors and drawbridges. There are also sieges in the game; a large horde of enemies will try to penetrate your fortress, and you will need to fight them off (however, sieges aren't implemented well yet; it basically suffices to close the front door...)
A lot of the appeal of Dwarf Fortress lies in the construction of large engineering projects. The game's free-form approach makes this particularly satisfying. Diverting a river, by means of corridors and lever-controlled doors, so that it floods certain underground areas, which you will drain later, in order to enrich the soil so that it is possible to grow plants there... Building a water wheel in a river, which will turn a millstone; creating artificial underground rivers (which are crossed by drawbridges) to protect your fortress; creating a system in which, by the turn of a lever, fiery magma spills into the outside, incinerating enemies...
And this is only one of the game-modes in which Dwarf Fortress can be played (fortress mode). In "adventure mode", which is more akin to a roguelike, you control one character and explore the (randomly-generated) world, which includes fortresses which you have built in fortress mode. Finally, there is a relatively new 'legend mode', in which you explore the legends of your world.
The graphics are rudimentary; it's the Curses fontset in extended ASCII mode. There are however various fan-made graphical tilesets available.
Dwarf Fortress is still in alpha. It's unusually broad scope and ambition can best be seen from the devlog. It deserves to be mentioned that it is the work of one man, who is working on Dwarf Fortress full-time. Eat that, backward-striving games industry...
Useful Links
Dwarf Fortress Home - download the game for free here
Dwarf Fortress Wiki - answers all questions
Boatmurdered - Legendary Let's Play DF
Mayday's Tileset - perhaps you'll find this more pleasing to the eye
Awesome intro cinematic!
World Creation
Let's play God and create a world specially for this LP.
I choose the small size, to go easy on the system resources. Yes: this ASCII game is known to completely jam the latest quad-core processors...! There is a lot of calculation going on with path-finding in Fortresses with 80+ dwarves, all the items and creatures etc. My craptastic computer probably won't handle as much, but maybe our dwarfs will starve to death before that.
Creating World!
Dathaecamo, "The Ageless Universe" has been created!
Preparation
Alright, we are ready to play! Let's select Dwarf Fortress mode and get pumpin'.
Disclaimer! I am by no means a DF wizard (or even wizzard), so all suggestions and criticisms are welcome!
WTF! some may exclaim upon seeing this. Others may see that these are three map-views, the left one being the most zoomed in and the right one the most zoomed out. If you have ASCII-allergy, don't worry; it is actually not necessary to know which sign represents what exactly.
We have to select a suitable site for our Fortress. There are several important things to consider while doing this.
This looks like an adequate spot. There is a brook, so we have flowing water. There is a layer of soil (clay loam); so on the first underground level farm plots can be built, which means we will have food production set up quite quickly. The second layer is a sedimentary layer (mudstone), so we probably will find some coal to fuel our furnace.
It is however cold, and the surroundings are "untamed wilds". This means we could get some trouble from wild animals (giant eagles are dangerous!).
There are two biome's here: areas which share biological and geological features.
This is the first one. It is marked with "X"'s on the local map.
And this is the second one. This one covers the mountains: there are no trees and no other vegetation, and there is no soil.
Checking the elevation levels... Nice, quite some steep cliffs; so we will be able to dig into the side of a mountain
These will be our neighbors... We're not at war with any of them (it is shown on this screen... But warfare sadly isn't implemented yet anyway)
The elevation screen...
All right, seems like an acceptable spot. Let's hit (E)mbark!
Of course we will prepare carefully for the journey!
This is where we customize our starting party of dwarfs and the items they will take. On the left you can see the list of dwarfs. Next to the dwarf's name, is a number representing how many skill points you can spend on him. On the right is a list showing which skills the highlighted dwarf has. There is a shitload of these skills (five screens of them), ranging from mining, swimming, fishing, animal caretaking, wood burning, masonry, pump operation, to cooking, fish dissecting, smithing, wood/stone/bone/gem crafting, sword/axe/spear/crossbow/shield/armour skills, organizing, record keeping, conversing, lying...
By doing the activity associated with a skill, a dwarf will get experience points, and his skill level will increase. Dwarfs which are not skilled in something, still can do the activity if you order them to do it -- they just do it at the lowest possible level. This means different things for different activities. For example, an unskilled miner will mine slow and he is less likely to find precious minerals or gems.
The activities, or "labors", which a dwarf can undertake in the game are not all represented by a skill; for example, there is "cleaning", "stone hauling", "burial", or "health care". There are also labors to which many skills correspond; for example, conversing, persuading and lying are all used in negotiations with traders.
Dwarfs have a color and a certain "profession name", based on which skills they have. If a dwarf is a proficient miner, he will be grey and his profession will be "Miner". These things are only cosmetic, though.
Let's hit tab and check out the items screen...
Check out this number-crunching goodness... Mmm... These are the items the game sets us up with by default.
Items and skills cost "starting points", which are listed in the bottom left corner. We have 200 starting points now.
My style of playing is to not take the anvil, worth 1000 points, with me. An anvil is essential for metalworking, and when you don't have one, you will have to get one via traders, and they don't always bring an anvil with them (you can order it, so that they will bring it next time they come, for extra dough). However, I usually go through my first two years with no metalworking, and make enough money by selling stuff to buy an anvil from the traders later. And 1000 starting points are very useful. So let's eliminate that anvil from the list and go back to the skills screen.
Okay, so which skills should you give to your dwarfs? Here, I'll be going for a pretty conservative build.
In my playing style, the labors which will be most performed in the beginning of the fortress are mining, growing and brewing (food and beverage production on farms), chopping down trees, hunting, carpentry (making beds), masonry (making doors and stone mechanisms), mechanics (for setting stone traps, the first kind of defense we will have). So I will make 3 miners/masons/mechanics, 2 farmers/masons/mechanics, one ranger, and one bureaucrat. The ranger will be the only one going outside, to chop down trees, to hunt and to fish. The bureaucrat will negotiate with traders, keep records and act as arbiter in disputes. Of course, when there are no traders to barter with or disputes to settle, that fat, lazy son of a bitch will be hauling stone.
Basically, miners, growers and brewers are the bare essentials. The rest of the skills are less important.
WHOAH! Yes, our trusty dwarfs are none other than infamous RPG CODEX TROLLS!
Alright, I realize I'm no Andyman Messiah and half of you have fallen asleep already while reading this. BUT! for the sake of completeness, and so that you actually can see what the fuck I'm doing, I will list all the skills I've given to the dwarfs.
All skills are on novice level, except ones indicated with *, which are on the second level.
Volourn: miner, engraver, building designer, mechanic, hammerdwarf, shield user, armor user
Cloaked Figure: miner, mason, engraver, mechanic, wrestler, shield user, armor user
sheek: miner, mason, engraver, stone crafter, mechanic, speardwarf, shield user, armor user, animal caretaker
larpingdude14: grower*, carpenter, mason, wood burner, wood crafter, brewer, cook, butcher, potash maker
kingcomrade: grower*, carpenter, mason, miller, thresher, brewer, cook, butcher
skyway: wood cutter*, fisherdwarf, herbalist, ambusher*, animal trainer, animal caretaker, axedwarf, swimmer
Andhaira: persuader, liar, judge of intent, appraiser*, organizer, record keeper, conversationalist, pacifier
I usually give novice level skills, because the ones which will be most used, will increase rapidly. Our miners will for example be proficient in mining in no-time.
Some notes on the skills: Animal caretaking is useful, because pet dogs are useful - they fight enemies and dangerous animals, which is important, especially in the beginning, when we don't have a fully fledged militia set up. Combat skills are hard to increase, so I gave the miners some basic ones. Later, they will serve in the militia. Appraising is a good skill, it allows to see what the worth of items is. Record keeping enables the bureaucrat, when he has an office, to make a list of what items are in the Fortress' inventory. Wood burning and potash making are used to make potash, a fertilizer. The wood cutter is an axedwarf, so he can use his axe in combat better.
Isn't it awesome that the leader of the expedition is a liar?
Now to give a name to this group of trolldwarfs:
And here we see the bloated face of maniacal feature-adding... WTF? No simple typing in of a name, no simple random generator... But gigantic lists of nouns, verbs and adjectives...! We're playing DWARF FORTRESS, in case you haven't noticed.
I muster my creativity to create a fitting, Codexian name for our valiant band of trolls.
Okay now let's head to the item screen and customize our inventory.
As with skills, we have a myriad of items to choose from; in fact, every item in the game can be taken as starting equipment. Unless you're going for a more hard to play build which focuses on hunting and fishing, farming will be the basis of food production in the Fortress. This means that the most important item to take with you are seeds (seeds can also be harvested from plants growing on the surface, but It's better to bring a supply) The miners need copper picks to do some mining, and if you want to cut down trees you need an axe. A supply of food and drink is also obviously essential. All the rest is optional and of lesser importance.
Foodstuffs go in barrels, 5 units per barrel. By taking numbers ending on '6' or '1' we can maximize the amount of barrels which we get at the start Barrels are useful items; when we start to produce food, we will need to make more of them for food storage, to prevent it from rotting.
Plump helmet spawn are "seeds" of plump helmets, mushrooms which can grow in caves and outside. Those will form the basic nutrition in our fortress. Cave wheat is needed to brew beer, which will be what the dwarven trolls will mostly drink.
Other stuff I've tagged are some wooden logs, which means we won't have to chop down 20 or so trees in the beginning, and can start producing beds for our dwarfs immediately. Taking a rope is very useful; because it is needed to build a well, and it costs some effort to make one yourself (it has three production stages: plant -> thread -> cloth -> rope). I've also taken some weapons, since we won't be doing metalworking anytime soon, and they can come in handy. Who would think of going into the desolate wild to create a fortress and not to take any weapons with them!? Well, actually this is possible in the game, but we'll take some nevertheless.
As for the animals: The most useful are dogs, because they can FIGHT! They attack intruders and can help in hunting. So I'm taking 4 with me (there probably will be a female included, which means we can breed more), and a war dog and hunting dog. Those last two will be assigned to the ranger, to help him in hunting and for protection.
Cats keep bad thoughts away, which is good as well, so I'm taking two of those.
The only use for pack animals is as an emergency food supply, as far as I've seen (anyone care to enlighten me?). Cows aren't milkable, but it is on the list of things to be added, right after full-scale warfare
The remaining points I have used to stock up on the high-quality cow meat.
Again, by using my Codexian inventiveness I create a beautiful name for the Fortress which is truly in the spirit of these boards.
Now LET'S GO!
EPIC !!!! (Yeah I know, it's garbled, but better this than an image 1280 pixels wide)
To be continued
I guess the majority of people on these boards are already familiar with Dwarf Fortress, but for those of you new to the game I will write a short fan-boyish masturbatory sales-pitch... erm, introduction.
Introduction
Dwarf Fortress is a strategy game with elements of a management sim, an RTS and SimCity. Think of Dungeon Keeper and then soak it in the number-crunching complexity of a Roguelike, and you get close to what DF is. The player takes the role of leader of an expedition of dwarfs, which set out to build a Fortress. The dwarfs are not controlled directly, but by issuing orders. They will need food and drink, which can be produced by farming or obtained by hunting and trading, and they will have to make crafts and dig for minerals and gems to sell to merchants. The number of different buildings, workshops, items, skills, creatures, stone and mineral types in the game is large, and the interaction between them is very detailed.
The game features a year-cycle with changing weather conditions. In the winter, lakes and streams can freeze. Caravans of traders arrive after winter. Thieves roam the world, and can invade your fortress to steal your precious goods - this is why it needs to be protected by traps, your militia, and secured by doors and drawbridges. There are also sieges in the game; a large horde of enemies will try to penetrate your fortress, and you will need to fight them off (however, sieges aren't implemented well yet; it basically suffices to close the front door...)
A lot of the appeal of Dwarf Fortress lies in the construction of large engineering projects. The game's free-form approach makes this particularly satisfying. Diverting a river, by means of corridors and lever-controlled doors, so that it floods certain underground areas, which you will drain later, in order to enrich the soil so that it is possible to grow plants there... Building a water wheel in a river, which will turn a millstone; creating artificial underground rivers (which are crossed by drawbridges) to protect your fortress; creating a system in which, by the turn of a lever, fiery magma spills into the outside, incinerating enemies...
And this is only one of the game-modes in which Dwarf Fortress can be played (fortress mode). In "adventure mode", which is more akin to a roguelike, you control one character and explore the (randomly-generated) world, which includes fortresses which you have built in fortress mode. Finally, there is a relatively new 'legend mode', in which you explore the legends of your world.
The graphics are rudimentary; it's the Curses fontset in extended ASCII mode. There are however various fan-made graphical tilesets available.
Dwarf Fortress is still in alpha. It's unusually broad scope and ambition can best be seen from the devlog. It deserves to be mentioned that it is the work of one man, who is working on Dwarf Fortress full-time. Eat that, backward-striving games industry...
Useful Links
Dwarf Fortress Home - download the game for free here
Dwarf Fortress Wiki - answers all questions
Boatmurdered - Legendary Let's Play DF
Mayday's Tileset - perhaps you'll find this more pleasing to the eye
Awesome intro cinematic!
World Creation
Let's play God and create a world specially for this LP.
I choose the small size, to go easy on the system resources. Yes: this ASCII game is known to completely jam the latest quad-core processors...! There is a lot of calculation going on with path-finding in Fortresses with 80+ dwarves, all the items and creatures etc. My craptastic computer probably won't handle as much, but maybe our dwarfs will starve to death before that.
Creating World!
Dathaecamo, "The Ageless Universe" has been created!
Preparation
Alright, we are ready to play! Let's select Dwarf Fortress mode and get pumpin'.
Disclaimer! I am by no means a DF wizard (or even wizzard), so all suggestions and criticisms are welcome!
WTF! some may exclaim upon seeing this. Others may see that these are three map-views, the left one being the most zoomed in and the right one the most zoomed out. If you have ASCII-allergy, don't worry; it is actually not necessary to know which sign represents what exactly.
We have to select a suitable site for our Fortress. There are several important things to consider while doing this.
- Layer types. The prosperity of our fortress will mainly depend on the ground it is dug out in. It is useful to have a layer of soil, since that is the only layer on which it is possible to have farms without irrigation (flooding it with water and then draining it). Soil types are listed in brown on the list of ground layers, on the right side of the screen. If there is no magma (which is very scarce) on the map, it is almost essential to have a sedimentary layer. Sedimentary layers contain bituminous coal, which is used to fuel a furnace. If you want to do metalworking - and you want to - this is important (apart from magma and coal, a furnace can be also fueled by chopping down massive areas of forest). Sedimentary layers appear in white on the layer list. Finally, you should look out for aquifers - layers of water. You don't want those.
- Flowing water. Rivers, streams and brooks provide drinking water to Dwarves and don't freeze in winter, like ponds. Also, they can be used for irrigation, for water wheels, creating canals and fishing.
- Trees, surroundings and vegetation. Trees are important since beds are essential, and can only be made out of wood. The same holds for barrels. So, unless we bring our own logs, we'll have to chop down some trees (or buy them from traders). Also, wood can be used to fuel the furnace. The surroundings show how much wildlife there is, which is important for hunting and trapping, and how dangerous the area is. Vegetation other than trees is good for harvesting seeds.
This looks like an adequate spot. There is a brook, so we have flowing water. There is a layer of soil (clay loam); so on the first underground level farm plots can be built, which means we will have food production set up quite quickly. The second layer is a sedimentary layer (mudstone), so we probably will find some coal to fuel our furnace.
It is however cold, and the surroundings are "untamed wilds". This means we could get some trouble from wild animals (giant eagles are dangerous!).
There are two biome's here: areas which share biological and geological features.
This is the first one. It is marked with "X"'s on the local map.
And this is the second one. This one covers the mountains: there are no trees and no other vegetation, and there is no soil.
Checking the elevation levels... Nice, quite some steep cliffs; so we will be able to dig into the side of a mountain
These will be our neighbors... We're not at war with any of them (it is shown on this screen... But warfare sadly isn't implemented yet anyway)
The elevation screen...
All right, seems like an acceptable spot. Let's hit (E)mbark!
Of course we will prepare carefully for the journey!
This is where we customize our starting party of dwarfs and the items they will take. On the left you can see the list of dwarfs. Next to the dwarf's name, is a number representing how many skill points you can spend on him. On the right is a list showing which skills the highlighted dwarf has. There is a shitload of these skills (five screens of them), ranging from mining, swimming, fishing, animal caretaking, wood burning, masonry, pump operation, to cooking, fish dissecting, smithing, wood/stone/bone/gem crafting, sword/axe/spear/crossbow/shield/armour skills, organizing, record keeping, conversing, lying...
By doing the activity associated with a skill, a dwarf will get experience points, and his skill level will increase. Dwarfs which are not skilled in something, still can do the activity if you order them to do it -- they just do it at the lowest possible level. This means different things for different activities. For example, an unskilled miner will mine slow and he is less likely to find precious minerals or gems.
The activities, or "labors", which a dwarf can undertake in the game are not all represented by a skill; for example, there is "cleaning", "stone hauling", "burial", or "health care". There are also labors to which many skills correspond; for example, conversing, persuading and lying are all used in negotiations with traders.
Dwarfs have a color and a certain "profession name", based on which skills they have. If a dwarf is a proficient miner, he will be grey and his profession will be "Miner". These things are only cosmetic, though.
Let's hit tab and check out the items screen...
Check out this number-crunching goodness... Mmm... These are the items the game sets us up with by default.
Items and skills cost "starting points", which are listed in the bottom left corner. We have 200 starting points now.
My style of playing is to not take the anvil, worth 1000 points, with me. An anvil is essential for metalworking, and when you don't have one, you will have to get one via traders, and they don't always bring an anvil with them (you can order it, so that they will bring it next time they come, for extra dough). However, I usually go through my first two years with no metalworking, and make enough money by selling stuff to buy an anvil from the traders later. And 1000 starting points are very useful. So let's eliminate that anvil from the list and go back to the skills screen.
Okay, so which skills should you give to your dwarfs? Here, I'll be going for a pretty conservative build.
In my playing style, the labors which will be most performed in the beginning of the fortress are mining, growing and brewing (food and beverage production on farms), chopping down trees, hunting, carpentry (making beds), masonry (making doors and stone mechanisms), mechanics (for setting stone traps, the first kind of defense we will have). So I will make 3 miners/masons/mechanics, 2 farmers/masons/mechanics, one ranger, and one bureaucrat. The ranger will be the only one going outside, to chop down trees, to hunt and to fish. The bureaucrat will negotiate with traders, keep records and act as arbiter in disputes. Of course, when there are no traders to barter with or disputes to settle, that fat, lazy son of a bitch will be hauling stone.
Basically, miners, growers and brewers are the bare essentials. The rest of the skills are less important.
WHOAH! Yes, our trusty dwarfs are none other than infamous RPG CODEX TROLLS!
Alright, I realize I'm no Andyman Messiah and half of you have fallen asleep already while reading this. BUT! for the sake of completeness, and so that you actually can see what the fuck I'm doing, I will list all the skills I've given to the dwarfs.
All skills are on novice level, except ones indicated with *, which are on the second level.
Volourn: miner, engraver, building designer, mechanic, hammerdwarf, shield user, armor user
Cloaked Figure: miner, mason, engraver, mechanic, wrestler, shield user, armor user
sheek: miner, mason, engraver, stone crafter, mechanic, speardwarf, shield user, armor user, animal caretaker
larpingdude14: grower*, carpenter, mason, wood burner, wood crafter, brewer, cook, butcher, potash maker
kingcomrade: grower*, carpenter, mason, miller, thresher, brewer, cook, butcher
skyway: wood cutter*, fisherdwarf, herbalist, ambusher*, animal trainer, animal caretaker, axedwarf, swimmer
Andhaira: persuader, liar, judge of intent, appraiser*, organizer, record keeper, conversationalist, pacifier
I usually give novice level skills, because the ones which will be most used, will increase rapidly. Our miners will for example be proficient in mining in no-time.
Some notes on the skills: Animal caretaking is useful, because pet dogs are useful - they fight enemies and dangerous animals, which is important, especially in the beginning, when we don't have a fully fledged militia set up. Combat skills are hard to increase, so I gave the miners some basic ones. Later, they will serve in the militia. Appraising is a good skill, it allows to see what the worth of items is. Record keeping enables the bureaucrat, when he has an office, to make a list of what items are in the Fortress' inventory. Wood burning and potash making are used to make potash, a fertilizer. The wood cutter is an axedwarf, so he can use his axe in combat better.
Isn't it awesome that the leader of the expedition is a liar?
Now to give a name to this group of trolldwarfs:
And here we see the bloated face of maniacal feature-adding... WTF? No simple typing in of a name, no simple random generator... But gigantic lists of nouns, verbs and adjectives...! We're playing DWARF FORTRESS, in case you haven't noticed.
I muster my creativity to create a fitting, Codexian name for our valiant band of trolls.
Okay now let's head to the item screen and customize our inventory.
As with skills, we have a myriad of items to choose from; in fact, every item in the game can be taken as starting equipment. Unless you're going for a more hard to play build which focuses on hunting and fishing, farming will be the basis of food production in the Fortress. This means that the most important item to take with you are seeds (seeds can also be harvested from plants growing on the surface, but It's better to bring a supply) The miners need copper picks to do some mining, and if you want to cut down trees you need an axe. A supply of food and drink is also obviously essential. All the rest is optional and of lesser importance.
Foodstuffs go in barrels, 5 units per barrel. By taking numbers ending on '6' or '1' we can maximize the amount of barrels which we get at the start Barrels are useful items; when we start to produce food, we will need to make more of them for food storage, to prevent it from rotting.
Plump helmet spawn are "seeds" of plump helmets, mushrooms which can grow in caves and outside. Those will form the basic nutrition in our fortress. Cave wheat is needed to brew beer, which will be what the dwarven trolls will mostly drink.
Other stuff I've tagged are some wooden logs, which means we won't have to chop down 20 or so trees in the beginning, and can start producing beds for our dwarfs immediately. Taking a rope is very useful; because it is needed to build a well, and it costs some effort to make one yourself (it has three production stages: plant -> thread -> cloth -> rope). I've also taken some weapons, since we won't be doing metalworking anytime soon, and they can come in handy. Who would think of going into the desolate wild to create a fortress and not to take any weapons with them!? Well, actually this is possible in the game, but we'll take some nevertheless.
As for the animals: The most useful are dogs, because they can FIGHT! They attack intruders and can help in hunting. So I'm taking 4 with me (there probably will be a female included, which means we can breed more), and a war dog and hunting dog. Those last two will be assigned to the ranger, to help him in hunting and for protection.
Cats keep bad thoughts away, which is good as well, so I'm taking two of those.
The only use for pack animals is as an emergency food supply, as far as I've seen (anyone care to enlighten me?). Cows aren't milkable, but it is on the list of things to be added, right after full-scale warfare
The remaining points I have used to stock up on the high-quality cow meat.
Again, by using my Codexian inventiveness I create a beautiful name for the Fortress which is truly in the spirit of these boards.
Now LET'S GO!
EPIC !!!! (Yeah I know, it's garbled, but better this than an image 1280 pixels wide)
To be continued