dwarf fortress

so, roughly eight hours of video tutorials and countless consultations of the wiki later i'm finally getting the dorfs to do what they're told. i can make a decent starter mine, prepare a depot, and get my little alcoholics brewing, carpentering, crafting shit to trade, all that shit - setup proper stockpiles, ensure efficient workflow, and so on.

i still do seem to have some amusing fuckups though. i made a moat just now, underestimated the water pressure, flooded an entire floor. i must be on to my twelfth iteration of my beginner fortress and STILL the game kicks my ass. but once you get over that learning curve, it's such a lot of fun. and so fuckin deep. amazing game.

if you have no idea what i'm talking about, read this NYT article.

I remember you mentioned this game like 5-6 months ago. Did it really take you that long to start to figure it out?

I don't mean that in an insulting way, just...is it really that complicated?

i abandoned it for ages, it's really really hard to get into. the user interface is horrifyingly complicated.

i started into it again a few days ago. thanks to a decent set of video tutorials i kinda understand what i'm doing 90% of the time now. easiest way to explain it is sorta... minecraft, but with the complexity of EVE, the skills tree of civ, large chunks of simcity, a richer and more complex crafting mechanic, and a richer and more complex trading mechanic. it's not an easy game to get into. but it's definitely worth it.

this is the tutorial i've been using, it's the best i've encountered

Hey, it looks really cool! I`ll definitely check it out when I have some more time.

  Quote

Last spring, a player calling himself Jong89 logged on with brain-bending news. Using “672 pumps, 2,000 logs, 8,500 mechanisms and thousands of other assorted bits and knobs like doors and rock blocks,” he’d built a crude but functioning computer within Dwarf Fortress.

  On 6/19/2012 at 2:29 AM, zemudene said:

Hey, it looks really cool! I`ll definitely check it out when I have some more time.

 

  Quote

Last spring, a player calling himself Jong89 logged on with brain-bending news. Using “672 pumps, 2,000 logs, 8,500 mechanisms and thousands of other assorted bits and knobs like doors and rock blocks,” he’d built a crude but functioning computer within Dwarf Fortress.

if you need help with the basics, feel free to message me.

I remember this game. I once killed a few elves that came to trade and took all their stuff. I built fortifications and an army in preparation for a retaliatory attack, but it never came.

Also, eight hours to learn the game sounds really excessive to me. I played several years ago though, so maybe it's gotten harder since then.

it has. there's a z axis now.

I'm trying to get into this game.

I find it impossible to get through the instruction videos because of the guy's voice though, maybe it's because I'm also Dutch, maybe it's because he just has a horrible voice which reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyhow, would you say the Wiki will get me about as far, kaini?

in all honesty this was my third time trying to get over the hump of the learning curve - his videos really seemed to do the trick where other things failed.

that being said, i've started to find myself relying on this as much now: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide

it's a different author so some of the advice is different... i'd say maybe watch the first four videos, then start using the quickstart on the wiki? the ui is so horrible that it's nice to have someone to hold your hand and get you through the starting bit where you're wtfing all over the place.

I literally just picked this game up for the second time a few days ago (tried it once many months ago, gave up). When does it stop becoming work and start becoming fun? If it's not soon then I think I'm about done with this.

I'm used to the ASCII style because I've played rougelikes before (actually just Nethack). I'm going to look into some other rougelikes soon.

edit:

Is that video tutorial for 0.34.11? I'm using the quickstart guide on the wiki, but it's pretty tough to get through all that text.

edit2:

lol, nvm, first ten seconds of the video

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:32 PM, gmanyo said:

I literally just picked this game up for the second time a few days ago (tried it once many months ago, gave up). When does it stop becoming work and start becoming fun? If it's not soon then I think I'm about done with this.

your first trading caravan should arrive in autumn. make sure you have an accessible depot. and... i dunno, it's kinda fun AND work, in a similar way to minecraft. getting to the point where you're self-sufficient, then making a military, then finally digging down far enough to access the cave system and getting some awesome loot, then crafting awesome stuff that's worth shitloads... it does take a while.

i love 'v'ing on a dwarf and reading his back story. gives a real sense of depth.

edit: as for roguelikes, get DCSS and brogue. brogue will astonish you with how beautiful people can make ASCII look. i play dorf fortress with a tileset though.

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:48 PM, kaini said:

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:32 PM, gmanyo said:

I literally just picked this game up for the second time a few days ago (tried it once many months ago, gave up). When does it stop becoming work and start becoming fun? If it's not soon then I think I'm about done with this.

 

your first trading caravan should arrive in autumn. make sure you have an accessible depot. and... i dunno, it's kinda fun AND work, in a similar way to minecraft. getting to the point where you're self-sufficient, then making a military, then finally digging down far enough to access the cave system and getting some awesome loot, then crafting awesome stuff that's worth shitloads... it does take a while.

 

i love 'v'ing on a dwarf and reading his back story. gives a real sense of depth.

 

edit: as for roguelikes, get DCSS and brogue. brogue will astonish you with how beautiful people can make ASCII look. i play dorf fortress with a tileset though.

Last time I managed to get to the first caravan. But I was running out of supplies and water and shit so I gave up. I just want to get to the "fun". Ridiculous things happening. But if that's going to take hours and hours of grind every single time I play then I can't be bothered. Getting to the mines sounds awesome, but fuck it if it's going to take hours of video game playing to get there.

also, you NEED dwarf therapist. trying to manage skillsets from within the game is just nightmarish. get the lazy newb pack, that'll sort out a lot of the problems with the thing.

  On 6/19/2012 at 11:08 PM, gmanyo said:

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:48 PM, kaini said:

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:32 PM, gmanyo said:

I literally just picked this game up for the second time a few days ago (tried it once many months ago, gave up). When does it stop becoming work and start becoming fun? If it's not soon then I think I'm about done with this.

 

your first trading caravan should arrive in autumn. make sure you have an accessible depot. and... i dunno, it's kinda fun AND work, in a similar way to minecraft. getting to the point where you're self-sufficient, then making a military, then finally digging down far enough to access the cave system and getting some awesome loot, then crafting awesome stuff that's worth shitloads... it does take a while.

 

i love 'v'ing on a dwarf and reading his back story. gives a real sense of depth.

 

edit: as for roguelikes, get DCSS and brogue. brogue will astonish you with how beautiful people can make ASCII look. i play dorf fortress with a tileset though.

Last time I managed to get to the first caravan. But I was running out of supplies and water and shit so I gave up. I just want to get to the "fun". Ridiculous things happening. But if that's going to take hours and hours of grind every single time I play then I can't be bothered. Getting to the mines sounds awesome, but fuck it if it's going to take hours of video game playing to get there.

this comic kinda explains how it's awesome and unique very well: http://www.timdenee.com/bronzemurder.html

Yeah, I got Dwarf Therapist. It was a bit annoying because I had to figure out how to get it working on 34.11, but I did it. Also, I've got a mac, so I can't get the Lazy Newb pack.

Nice comic. Problem is: how often do you get that much fun out of your hours of grind? How often do you get 30 minutes of fun after spending 20-30 hours just making a fortress? Also, one of the most off-putting things for me: FPS death.

  On 6/19/2012 at 11:15 PM, gmanyo said:

Also, one of the most off-putting things for me: FPS death.

yeah, i have a relatively decent PC and once i get to about 25 dorfs it just murders the thing. that does suck.

i don't agree with you on the other point though. something bay12 hammer into you over and over: losing is fun. if you fuck up bad, you can be sure you won't do the thing that caused the fuckup again. case in point... last night i got cocky; i was all 'yeah, i got this game figured out'. i had a base in the side of a mountain next to a fast-flowing river, so i decided to make a moat. so i channeled out the relevant shit, and made access tunnels to my base. i figured when i breached the stream i'd have time to make gates to control the flow. turns out i underestimated the water pressure. i breached the stream - bam - dwarves swept away. base flooded to shit.

i won't do that again.

  On 6/19/2012 at 11:23 PM, kaini said:

  On 6/19/2012 at 11:15 PM, gmanyo said:

Also, one of the most off-putting things for me: FPS death.

 

yeah, i have a relatively decent PC and once i get to about 25 dorfs it just murders the thing. that does suck.

 

i don't agree with you on the other point though. something bay12 hammer into you over and over: losing is fun. if you fuck up bad, you can be sure you won't do the thing that caused the fuckup again. case in point... last night i got cocky; i was all 'yeah, i got this game figured out'. i had a base in the side of a mountain next to a fast-flowing river, so i decided to make a moat. so i channeled out the relevant shit, and made access tunnels to my base. i figured when i breached the stream i'd have time to make gates to control the flow. turns out i underestimated the water pressure. i breached the stream - bam - dwarves swept away. base flooded to shit.

 

i won't do that again.

Oh, of course that's the fun part. But I just don't know if it's worth getting there. Losing is fun, but spending hours just building a basic fort is not. Especially since once I get good I know FPS death will be a huge part of the game.

  On 6/20/2012 at 6:04 AM, gmanyo said:

Especially since once I get good I know FPS death will be a huge part of the game.

this may be of use: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Maximizing_framerate

Finally getting a bit more into this. I'm near the end of the quickstart guide, making traps and drawbridges. I'm starting to get a feel for what you can really do in this game, and it's cool.

My FPS seems fine at the moment; I've got 24 dwarves running around, think I'm good for a few more.

i think i'm getting to the fun now... i have a fairly productive fortress now, specialising in cutting gems and smelting gold to trade. anyway i was digging out a moat with a retractable drawbridge around my fortress. my expedition leader, a master miner, had the floor collapse from under him a bunch of times, and he died. so i made a coffin and buried him in the depths of the mine (it's what he would have wanted).

anyway, his second in command, a female master carpenter, picked up the slack and resumed digging a channel. floor collapses again and she's gravely wounded. she staggers to her bedroom and basically goes into a coma for months. i set up a hospital and my chief medical dwarf is tending her regularly, cleaning her wounds and feeding her. i just got a notice that SHE GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY DWARF WHILE IN THE COMA, and now he's in the bed with his comatose mom.

this game has a great knack for creating narratives in your head despite the fact you're looking at a load of tiny little tiles.

I am just so fucking tired of the micromanagement. It takes way too long to get to fun, whether that means losing or just actually having fun. I have like 70 dwarves and I'm just fucking bored out of my mind from all the tiny things you have to do constantly. I'll probably keep trying though, at least for a bit more. Maybe I just need to get better at using the manager.

you do. i was like that until i started forcing myself to use the manager for everything. if you have a good workflow you can set stuff like breweries and kitchens on repeat as well, that helps.

I have pretty much everything on repeat that I can, but it's still insanely annoying. I also que up orders with my manager, but I was wondering what else you could do. Every time dwarves migrate into my fortress, which is like every damn season, I have to check them out and decide what to do with them. This takes a long time even with dwarf therapist.

edit:

I've gotten to the end of the beginner's guide, and now I'm looking at how to do the other stuff, and it's all confusing as hell and way time consuming.

i tend to leave them as what they're naturally skilled with upon migration unless it's gonna be the case that i end up with 8 fish cleaners or something. or if i need a bunch of miners for a project.

  On 6/25/2012 at 11:23 AM, kaini said:

i just got a notice that SHE GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY DWARF WHILE IN THE COMA, and now he's in the bed with his comatose mom.

 

then she got better. the other dwarves made her mayor.